VRTP://HOUSEBOOK.EARTH/VERSAILLES2832/USERS/CHERUB-B-WHITING.VR
Rubi woke to birdsong and a glimmer of dawn, sim of an idyllic spring morning. Yawning, she relaxed against the pillows, luxuriating in muzzy solitude.
As she crawled toward alertness, artificial sunrise banished the shadows, and her bedroom defaults sharpened. Instead of the standard furnishings of her bachelor pop-in, she saw virtual properties: saffron-canopied bed, heavy gold curtains. The ornate porcelain clock read four in the morning. Happ, manifested as a charcoal-and-cream French boxer puppy, slept by a fire. Cartoon thought balloons formed and popped above him, moji depicting hearts, happy faces, Zzzzz, and pictures of Rubi hugging various @CloseFriends.
Her walls were crowded with Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun portraits, female courtiers all. It was a Who’s Who of French Revolution guillotine victims—when she’d gotten her implants and built her e-state, Rubi had been nursing a morbid streak. Rosy-cheeked Terror victims smiled down from gold frames. The wallpaper was pale blue; a cobwebby chandelier, above, dripped crystals that dashed sparks off the morning sunlight.
Early hours here, ten at night at home. She ran her hands through the soft nap of her nanosilk bedspread, thinking wistfully about Robin, worrying that she missed the dog more than she did her father.
Something Drow said yesterday drifted back: Everything’s to spec. We gotta cut the cord, honey. Gotta free you up to go nurture other unlovable souls.
Easy to say. Last time she’d tried cutting the so-called cord, he’d destabilized completely.
She rose, banishing bloody memory by levering the bed against the wall, crush of mattress into compartment. Her primer was configured in a loose blouse-and-trouser combination: cream-colored silk pajamas. She ran a hand over her hip, enjoying the texture.
“Beach, please,” she said, pushing through her French doors, then following a path into a honeysuckle-scented tropical paradise. She had taken a dose of Conviction at midnight, Central European Time, and nothing broke the illusion of white sand and waving palm trees. She did a top-to-bottom stretch, loosening each muscle group, breathing with the metronome of the tide. Wandering, her mind declined to hook into anything specific.
She kept her movements slow, babying both her dicky rotator cuff and her newly inflamed wrist.
Once everything was loose, mind and body alike, she turned from the beach. A path led her around a hedge—in reality, on a loop through the apartment’s living room—to reveal a dressing tent. The crate she’d brought into the pop-in yesterday was here, rendered as a powder-blue steamer trunk. The rust-smeared tunic from yesterday sat atop it, smelling of pepper. It had glass shards in the hip; she’d recycle it. Inside the trunk, she found a long-sleeved jacket, saffron in color and cut like an old frock coat, with teak buttons.
The overlay was a match for her furnishings, tailored to mimic courtier’s garb. Unnecessary bit of cosplay: her toon could look frilly-sleeved, powdered, and bewigged even if, in flesh, she was stark naked.
Rubi preferred a touch of costume.
She reset her primer, transforming it from pajamas into a dark brown skinsuit, then pulled the jacket overtop. Running two fingers over the beads she wore at her temple, she stepped out. Her e-state knew she was done with the beach: the dressing room door now led to the screened entrance to her receiving chamber.
Peeking through, she got a jolt of surprise. The room was crammed with toons. Two of her law school frenemies were chatting on a couch. @CloseFriends Plazz and Margarita, themselves the children of Shanghai music virtuosi, were waltzing slow circles to the music of a lute player, orbiting Rubi’s rose marble floor. A bunch of her Rabble teammates were playing a complicated-looking card game.
Juniper, who’d designed the hammer-and-tongs motif for Rubi’s dress, was wearing sixteenth-century courtier’s garb and embroidering a virtual tapestry. Her fandom mash-up included one of the first media aliens—Vulcans, they were called—so her toon wore pointed ears and the tapestry was of an offworld desert scene.
A flicker of internal charge.
Gimlet Barnes, rendered in black Zorro gear, was reading a novel in an alcove, sipping tea and eating what appeared to be figs.
Rubi stepped out from behind the screen, thinking to pass quietly among her guests, exchanging hugs and saying hellos. She hadn’t seen Plazz in—
But everyone rose, firing starbursts and auditory moji—three cheers!—as she appeared.
Rubi felt herself blush. “I—Thanks, everyone.”
Friendly nods, a few claps on the shoulder. Margarita whirled out of the dance for a hug, then told the room, “Give her a little space, gang. She was clearly expecting a bit of breakfast club chatter, not a mob.”
“No!” Rubi protested. “It’s amazing—I’m glad to see—”
As she ran dry again, Margie cast a banner: @RUBIGUESTS: DIAL IT DOWN!
A few people fired sprays of celebratory confetti, glittering hearts and flower petals, that evaporated as they hit the floor. Then everyone went back to whatever they’d been doing.
A lump rose in her throat. All her friends, from around the world, tooning in to … well, just to touch base, see if she was okay. She replied with gestural moji: hands clasped to heart.
Margie subbed, “Weren’t you planning to retire from gaming and buckle down into lawyering for the mad? Fade into obscurity, you said. Appeal SeaJuve and sue for better user agreements for the mentally ill.”
“Maybe I’m better at self-sabotage than I thought.” With a sigh, Rubi made for Crane, whose avian toon loomed magisterially in full butler dress beside a tray of cubed fruit and a steaming cup.
“I took the liberty of hiring the lute player, Miss.”
“Can I afford to upgrade to a band? Get more of a dance going?” She could feel the collective attention of her social circle pressing on her. “We want to be good hosts.”
“I’ll put out a gig to the Feckless Bachelor™ management team,” Crane said.
“I wasn’t expecting a crowd.”
“Numbers will thin as North America heads into bedtime.”
On the silver platter next to the breakfast tray she saw stacks—stacks!—of calling cards. “What’s all this?”
“Friend requests,” he said. “Congratulatory messages. The doubloon is an #earningopp—a design-share contract from your friend Juniper, because people have been loading her hammer-and-tongs fabric pattern. Revenue split of ten percent, direct to your stake.”
“Accept. What about those legal mentors I messaged? Anyone willing to file an appeal for sustaining SeaJuve?”
“A few of them are reconsidering it.”
Dammit. She flexed her wrist. What did she have to do, break an actual bone?
“There is a note from Manitoule, at the casino.”
“I can’t think about fighting—” Her throat closed. “I need more time.”
“I’ve capitalized your elevated Cloudsight rating by upgrading to long-term premium subscriptions on all information services.”
Savings in her virtual pocket: Crane would max out her user agreements, locking in low rates, high perks, long terms. “Messages from Luce?”
“Yes: he’s still deciphering his geotags. Are we working now, Miss Cherub? With all these well-wishers logged into your chatroom?”
“Downtime.” She took the reminder gracefully. “Right.”
“I’ve assembled fruit and protein, with a light dose of Conviction in the plum, and tea.”
“I might need more fuel than that.” She popped a printed cube, purple in color, into her mouth, crunching through skin to the fruit beneath. Grape and pear exploded across her palate. Conviction laced in the printed fruit would amplify the sim reality: her body might circle the pop-in a dozen times, and she’d only perceive a party room thronging with her @CloseFriends. “Dinner was ages ago.”
“There’s a breakfast burrito ready to heat any time you desire. However, Happ suggested you may wish to leave room for real quiche. Perhaps with Agent Javier?”
“Happ needs to remember I’m not playing footsie with some #cowboycop involved in Luce’s case.”
“Push fluids today,” Crane said. “There is anti-inflammatory in the fruit course.”
She took up another cube—cherry, with an edible pit of pistachio nut. “Speaking of your matchmaker tendencies, who let Gimlet Barnes in?”
“Mer Barnes received a standing invitation to your vestibule from you, on February 16, after the two of you—”
“Don’t mention the—
“—kissed.”
“That was sim.”
“As is this.”
She gave him a stony stare.
“It would be profoundly rude to bounce them now.”
“Did I say I wanted them bounced?” Swallowing a vivid bite of cherry and pistachio, she took the tea tray. She swung past Juniper for an exchange of air kisses before making her way to the reading alcove.
Gimlet put the book aside, rising to bow, with flourishes. Their trademark was subtle: the pupils of their eyes formed inverted teardrops rather than circles. Rubi quashed an impulse to catch their hand and brush her lips over their fingers.
Instead, she sat—the sim had led her, seamlessly, to the pop-in apartment’s dining nook. She set her tray on the table. Gimlet, presumably, was seated in a comparable unit of their own. The illusion of sitting across a table from each other was perfect; she caught the delicate aroma of their plate of figs.
“So,” Rubi began as Gimlet opened with “I suppose—”
They fell silent.
“Guests first,” Rubi said.
“Are you injured?”
“Bumps and bruises.” She flexed experimentally, feeling twinges behind her thumb. Her knuckles were bruised. “There’s a burn, from the tear gas. Thin skin.”
“Nothing wrong with a bit of sensitivity,” they countered.
That inconvenient charge between them built. Maybe she should throw a cream pie—defuse this with slapstick.
She’d always had a thing for fine-boned, elfin types, especially soft-spoken tenors. Throw in a bit of that stiff upper lip; she could be had for an old British accent. But the real dealbreaker was the preternatural grace in-game. Gimlet was decent-looking when at rest. In motion, flying or fighting, they had the fierce beauty of an angel.
Evil angel, she reminded herself. Opposition.
“Teasing aside, I admire what you did yesterday.”
“What I did, practically, was dissociate.” The tie she needed to cut wasn’t to Drow; it was to performance gaming, with its drag on her legal career and—apparently—her grip on reality. “What’re you reading?”
“Three Musketeers.” A glance at her Sun King decor. “Seemed appropriate.”
“Everyone’s got a palace in Sensorium,” she said, and then winced inwardly. Mouthing platitudes? What was wrong with her? She manifested an elephant moji, stampeding it across the table. “Pachyderm-in-the-room time. I’ve been dodging your calls.”
“That’s abundantly clear. But why? It can’t be that you’re afraid of ignominious defeat in Bastille.” Gimlet’s tone was neutral. British irony and understatement wrapped into one. “Or that you don’t wish to give me a rematch.”
“We’ve rematched plenty.”
“Tiebreaker, then.”
“Are we tied?”
“You are fully aware of our win stats.”
Rubi flushed. She had been dissembling.
Now Gimlet, to her surprise, was the one looking abashed. “Sorry. That came out finger-waggy. Too much one-on-one with my daughter. I’m losing the knack of adult conversation. Also, I’m talking like some kind of upper-class prick.”
“It’s my e-state,” she said.
“Too right. Posh chairs and string quintets.”
“I suppose yours is a down-and-out boxing gym.”
“You have an invite to mine.”
Dammit! She took a bite of fruit. “Where’s your pack?”
Pain flashed over their face.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s just. Complicated.” Dismissive wave of the hand. “What would an archvillain say?”
“I never set out to build my gaming followship,” Rubi said, in a rush. “Or make a rival of you. Simming’s fun. Someone I schooled with joined Rabble Games—”
“Manitoule Curotte.”
“We used to run together. Manny offered me a couple premieres. With Drow’s profile, it just spiraled.”
“Whatever’s wrong with that? You enjoy it.”
“Truth, but…” But she needed to buckle down. Level as a lawyer, save SeaJuve.
“And you enjoy … us.”
She couldn’t quite quash a smile.
“You could go pro, after what happened in Paris.”
Her heart began to pound. “I have a life.”
“Pleasure is part of life.”
“I overdid it. I failed a test.”
“Ah. So, you are afraid, just not of me.”
Sympathy in their voice made her well up. She picked at a bead on her frock coat. “That’s not a very archvillain comment.”
“I’ll revert to my stock-in-trade, then,” Gimlet replied, running a weary hand over their unusual eyes.
Nurturing the unlovable, Drow had said. Rubi reined in her feelings, starting with the part of her that wanted to drag Gimlet into one of the curtained alcoves. She couldn’t take on another troubled soul, not now.
Gimlet rose, offering a hand as the string quartet behind them brought a minuet to a delicate close.
“Cherub Whiting, will you dance with me?”
She rose, sweeping them into a waltz as the next song began. “Can you follow, Gimlet?”
Their fingers settled, light as sun, on her shoulder. “I go all ways. Isn’t that obvious?”
This was the sort of exchange that gave Crane ideas.
Half of her guests followed them onto the dance floor. As Rubi’s ingested breakfast doses kicked in, she got deeper buy-in: underlying whiff of lilac perfume, the chalky warmth of powder on skin. The electricity of Gimlet’s long, sensitive fingers. A deep dive, like this one, held the world away. She had no sense at all of standing alone in her apartment, shadow-dancing.
“Your profile’s snowballed,” Gimlet murmured. “Like it or not, your celebrity is an asset you can leverage.”
They spun, in tandem. The band could switch to a tango and they wouldn’t miss a step.
“Rabble will offer whatever you want. Monologues, extreme acts of heroism—”
“I’m no grandstander!”
“If you must retire, push for a grand finale. I promise to do my utmost to kill you.”
She frowned. “Bastille’s a huge, multipart scenario. I have nontrivial surface concerns.”
“What if I bet you that you’d lose?”
It was bait. She eyeballed it anyway. “Wagers need stakes.”
“SeaJuve.”
She swallowed. “I’m listening.”
“A public wager might build enough media attention to tempt someone into filing your SeaJuve appeal. I’ll bet all my luxury credit for a year as seed money.”
“Against what?”
“All of yours, to Project Rewild.”
She almost missed a step. “You’re a rewilder?”
“My daughter Franks is mad about the concept. There’s an innovator on Rewild who claims she can print an #extinct species.”
Gimlet threw up a share without missing a step; in Rubi’s vestibule, the whiteboard manifested as an embroidered banner, unfurling in the garden beyond the dance floor. Rewild was polling on whether to resurrect a tiger cub or a baby elephant.
The romance of the idea: recovering a lost species, true de-extinction, made Rubi’s breath hitch. But … “We don’t have an ecosphere that can sustain elephants!”
“It’ll be the cat. India’s split down the middle, and China skews heavily to tigers.”
The banner zoomed on a chart from the Exit Poll app. Hyderabad was willing to try an elephant, but Gimlet was right: a tiger cub was clearly in the lead. Geneseo Genetics was bidding on the right to crèche it.
Gambling narratives got a lot of attention in the Eastern densification zones. “This is for reals?”
“Rewild’s in the same boat as SeaJuve. Mired in Oversight’s appeals queue, trying to prove this new printing crèche is viable,” Gimlet said. “But that’s noise. My motives are pure. I simply wish to fight you.”
Noise. Right. Gimlet was a pragmatist, not a true believer.
The warmth had gone out of Gimlet’s features. Flinty teardrop-pupiled eyes, sharp cheekbones, even fangs—their toon was every bit the villain now. Rubi whipped them in a tight circle and they kept up, in perfect lockstep.
“I’ll ask Great Lakes Casino and Rabble if they’d oversee a wager,” Rubi said. The thought of playing lightened her spirits … clearly, this scheme spoke to her dilettante side. “I’d want matching funds and publicity.”
A nod.
“After, I’m definitely retiring.”
“But?”
“But yes. If they go for it, we’ll break the almighty tie.”
“Winner take all? How delicious.” One last spin. The song ended, and they bowed to each other.
“Want to hang around? Try on wigs or tiaras?”
Gimlet shook their head. “Duty calls. Thank you. For the adult conversation.”
Rubi bowed. “On the field, then.”
Another vampire smile. “In and out, Whiting. Demolished in detail.”
She affected an old-time Southern US accent: “Oh, honey. I’m gonna wipe the Bastille’s little old floor with you.”
She saw them to the door and then circled the room, greeting friends. She danced a few more and finally joined one of the card games. At some point, Plazz and Margarita segued into a real date, porting to somewhere more private.
After more of her visitors ghosted, Rubi retired to a room farther within her e-state, flipping through Crane’s stack of calling cards until she found Anselmo.
Special Ops, he’d said, but he was angling for a job in Sapience Assessment. He had requested that cradle-to-current transcript, her whole bio with live updates.
“Luciano Pox reached out while you were dancing.” Crane shared a note. “He’s in London and wonders if your face-to-face could occur there.”
“I’ll ask Anselmo. Did you hear what Gimlet said?”
“Trying to fold your SeaJuve crusade into your commit to Bastille—”
“I haven’t committed yet.”
“—is a viable strategy. I recommend subscribing to an image management consultant. Debutante comes highly rated.”
She groaned.
“Next time you wish to save infants, perhaps you can donate blood instead of tackling terrorists.” A faint scratching sounded behind one elegantly rendered door. “Also, Happ has exceedingly detailed thoughts about in-the-flesh experiences in Paris.”
“He would.”
“Do see the city, Miss Cherub, before you hare off across the English Channel.”
“Okay! Tell Happ I’m making for the Arc de Triomphe. He can come walkies if he wants. Tell Anselmo Javier the same thing.”
“Invite. @Interpol Sapience Assessment. To come walkies,” Crane murmured, as if he was taking notes, and Rubi put her nose in the air.
“Ignoring you.” She surfaced, taking in the pop-in, with its white walls and her small collection of realworld possessions. She snatched up the rust-smeared dress from yesterday to take it down to recycling.
Sapience Assessment. So he does know.
Crane remained, sketched in as a toon at the edge of her vision. “If Agent Javier is right, Mer Pox may be dangerous.” His receding voice bolstered the illusion that she was leaving him behind as she closed the pop-in door and fled into the city of her dreams.