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He was pulled out of his dream by a loud clattering. He turned to Sky, who was trying to get his attention by moving her chained legs against the marble coffee table. When he looked over, she directed his attention toward the news playing on the display.
“...the building has recently appeared on Fifth Avenue of The Virt’s New York, across the road from Bryant Park. The impressive architecture extends as the highest building in the area...”
Morgan increased the volume.
“It is not yet known who owns the building, but it is believed to be part of the Red Masks...”
The image showed the unique structure of the new tower, the sides like giant and uninterrupted dark mirrors. Across the surface, red lights appeared and washed away in a gradual motion that swept upward, like the gentle rolling of whitecaps on a windy lake. Dozens or so feet from street level, an illuminated banner scrolled horizontally around the building’s walls with the words, The Red Tower, repeated every several feet.
“A crowd has formed outside, waiting in anticipation for the first person to exit the new building, as it is believed that inside are held the individuals in the Red Masks’ captivity...”
Morgan was on his feet.
“We’ve got to get in there, now.”
To avoid unchaining her legs, he rolled Sky on an office chair to the room with the simulation portals. He didn’t like holding her in restraint, but he couldn’t risk her trying to kill him again. He didn’t doubt her sincerity about not wanting to kill him, but they both agreed that her desire wasn’t enough to stop her. Morgan assumed they had trained her basal ganglia to instinctively try to kill him. This part of the brain was responsible for automatic instincts that could creep up on her when she didn’t expect it. Once aware of the instinct, she could, in theory, control it but only in ideal situations. The problem was that her situation was not ideal. She was deeply troubled, not only by accidentally shooting her own son, but also for being used as a tool to try to kill the brother she loved.
“I don’t understand why we need to do this together,” said Sky. She shifted herself from the office chair to the portal chair.
“I want to see if I can join you.”
“Join me, how?”
“There is nothing happening in this headset now,” he said, holding up the cashmere cap with electrical sensors. “Without your brain, it is a useless scrap of wires.”
Too many people were after him to risk connecting himself and uploading his own biomarkers to The Virt, letting whoever was after him trace him back to their hideout. He could only hope they wouldn’t yet be scanning The Virt for Sky. He had already explained to Sky his unique ability to take control of electrical processes, to reprogram them however he wanted. The problem of trying to enter The Virt was, the process only existed as an immediate biofeedback on the frontier of the brain. To get in without connecting, he needed to infiltrate that brain-process barrier. He didn’t really know what to expect, or how it would work, but with Sky he would soon find out.
“Is it going to work?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “Vi didn’t provide a guide to how to use this ability...”
Sky was startled by his mention of Vi. It had a positive affect on her, as it created another acknowledgement of their shared past.
“I’m sorry I must do this to you, but we cannot take any unnecessary risk.”
She didn’t argue with him as he tied her wrist to the portal’s chair.
“We’ll start in an alley near Fifth Avenue,” he said. “To see exactly how this works out.”
She relaxed in the chair with her eyes closed, the cap on her head, and let herself be carried into The Virt.
“All right, let’s do this,” he said to himself, setting himself up across from her. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine himself infiltrating the complex gateway that connected machine to the brain. The simulation technology created nothing. It didn’t create visual pixels or sounds through speakers. No, all senses were directly provoked in the neural network of the brain.
The task was daunting.
He wasn’t only attempting to control a linear process, like overriding the control of a drone or reprogramming a robotic dog; he was inserting himself between a human brain and the power of the Qintellect. He had reprogrammed the Qintellect before, when he had entered Fred, a Fake used to interrogate him. The experience felt very different than when he took over lesser objects. Fred had felt alive and real—an extension of himself. Of course, it should feel real, he now realized. Everything he experienced was the Qintellect. The Qintellect was the fabric of his existence.
“You with me?” Sky asked.
Her question reached him not as audible sound, but rather as frequency of information. He grasped its meaning clearly.
“I’m working on it,” he said inaudibly, as a message sent directly to her. “I’m trying to form an avatar.”
He traveled in the electrical current, unable to determine the limit between Sky and the Qintellect. He reminded himself that he didn’t need to understand it, he only needed to trust his ability to control the flux of information.
“There, I see you,” said Sky. “Another me!”
The two Skys in the alley examined each other.
By default, the portal generated avatars from the personal appearance of the connected user—based on their own mental image. The avatar could be changed simply; the user only needed to reimagine themselves as the desired avatar or with specific bodily changes. Morgan was satisfied appearing as Sky. It was better than using his own avatar, an image that was broadcasted on all the news outlets as a dangerous fugitive.
“I feel nothing,” said the second Sky through which Morgan spoke audibly in The Virt. “It’s strange. I know what’s happening but don’t feel anything physically. Everything is no more real than what I might feel when fully immersed in a novel’s description.” He walked over to the other Sky. “This makes sense as the neural stimulus is only in your mind. I can’t feel these things.”
Morgan examined the space around him—not with sight but through the flowing information that passed through him and that he fully understood. He could clearly imagine the aged brick wall, the pile of trash in the corner, the emergency staircase hanging above, the iron black landing with a black cat examining them with its glowing yellow eyes.
“I feel for both of us,” said Sky. She pushed against Morgan’s Sky. “I felt the touch of my push as well as me pushing me. It’s all very confusing. Can you control me?”
“No, I’m limited to this avatar,” said Morgan, but he lied. He didn’t try to control her. If he understood how this worked correctly, he should be able to control the sensory stimulus sent to her brain to control her experience. There was no point in him trying it. It would only make Sky feel powerless and could jeopardize her cooperation.
––––––––
The Virt’s Fifth Avenue was like the one in the real New York, with some differences. The shops along the iconic streets had been claimed by most of the famous brands of clothing, jewelry, and technological wearables. The streets were wider and reserved exclusively for pedestrians, who walked with less haste compared to the real world.
It wasn’t the type of place where Morgan spent his spare time, but he had been there on several occasions, always to accompany Aviva. The last time had been just last year, when Aviva needed something special for the Journalist Gala held in The Virt. She could have customized her outfit without spending a dime, but she wanted something with a designer signature.
He hurried toward the Red Tower, visible above the other buildings. The crowd outside had grown larger than the one he had seen on the news. In front of the tower, a podium had been set up with mics marked with the biggest networks’ names. Useless gimmicks in The Virt—the sound could be streamed directly—they wanted this to look official.
“You think she’s in there?” asked Sky.
“I’m going to find out.” He worked his way through the crowd toward the podium where the journalists were gathered. The people gathered weren’t curious spectators but rather people like Morgan, hoping to find their loved ones safely inside. They had tired faces and slouched shoulders.
The journalists were a fidgety and irritated bunch, not talking to each other—that phase had long passed. They were each complaining, in private communication with whomever had sent them there, trying to find out if new information confirmed it was still worth their time to be there. Morgan had been around their type enough to know that there was nothing they despised more than waiting for what might be a letdown, which it always was for them. In their initial excitement, the journalists imagined some unlikely scenario that would make this a sensational event. Aviva didn’t fall into this trap, keeping her expectations in check, she focused on seeing the situation without prejudice. This gave her the edge to ask the right question and reveal a deeper truth that the others missed.
Morgan noticed Tracy, from 24WRLD streaming news. The same Tracy who was friends with Aviva and had come over for dinner and wine with them. The same Tracy who claimed on live television that he was a dangerous fugitive.
“Hi, Tracy,” Morgan said in Sky’s voice. Tracy turned, examined Sky with an annoyed expression.
“Do I know you?”
“Name’s Sky, Aviva’s friend. We went out together.”
“Sorry, I don’t—”
“It was a few years ago. Can’t blame you for forgetting. We didn’t spare the wine.” Morgan was aware of Tracy’s little vice. He leaned in closer. “What’s happening here? Who are you waiting for?”
“Rumor has it that the people crazy enough to trust the Red Masks and enter their secure locations have been connected to simulation portals and have been uploaded in this Tower.”
Morgan’s disdain for Tracy intensified. Aviva was no crazy person, and neither were the thousands of others who sought safety when facing serious threats.
“Rumors or fact?” he asked.
“I don’t think it makes much sense. Why would terrorists want to capture citizens to upload them here? But the boss seems convinced. Told me to stay here until the Red Masks send out a representative to brief us on the situation. That’s what they said they’d do.”
“When is this scheduled for?”
“Scheduled... Yeah right. I wasted twelve hours...”
Morgan wasn’t planning on waiting to find out. He walked up to the mirrored wall to glance inside. It was impossible to see through its opaque reflection, which only returned Sky’s image. He tried pulling and pushing on the revolving door. It didn’t move in the slightest.
“It’s useless,” said a guard approaching him from the left. “They’ll open it when they’re ready. Wait like the others.”
Morgan banged against the window, wanting someone to come and clarify what they were waiting for.
“Miss, I have to ask you to move away from the building,” said a guard.
It took a moment for Morgan to realize the “miss” was him. He stepped back and away. He scanned the crowd, searching for Sky, but she was nowhere to be seen. Then, there was a growing silence as the journalists stopped their discussion and looked at him with wide eyes. Something was wrong. He turned back to see if something had happened behind him. Guards were pulling out their weapons while approaching him.
“It’s him... He’s one of them,” someone screamed.
There was a wave of panic in the crowd. A guard shouted at him to stop. Morgan ran in the opposite direction. Glimpsing in the mirrored windows of the shops, he could see he was no longer Sky, but himself. Sky must have switched his avatar.
Approaching a corner, he glanced back to see the guards still on his tail. Picking up speed, he turned down the next corner and knocked over a woman. He stopped to help her up, but before he could bring her to her feet, the man accompanying her struck him with a punch square on the left cheek. He didn’t feel a thing. He only saw the description of the stimulus on Sky’s mind—but she will have felt it fully. He hurried away and entered an alley that brought him to a dead end.
“Stop, Sky!” He sent the message straight to her mind. “Don’t do this to me.”
Damn, he thought, pacing in the closed space where he was now trapped. He heard the guards shouting as they ran in the streets. He switched his avatar back to Sky’s twin.
He didn’t want to disconnect. He wanted to stay and listen to whatever the person who exited the Red Tower had to say. Be there to question them and to get information to know what happened to Aviva. Find out where she was and if she was safe...or alive. He couldn’t risk going back. He couldn’t prevent Sky from switching him back to his own image again. She would do it again, given the chance.
The guards will be on alert and won’t hesitate to shoot him with a LockIn gun—holding Sky in The Virt, unable to log out until interrogated by the authorities. He couldn’t risk compromising her as she was his only way to get access into the Virt. He had no other choice but to log them both out.
He was angry at her.
He shut down the sensory stimulus on Sky’s brain. The simulation ended.
