Veneer (15 page)

Off in the distance, Deron heard a growl that rattled his bones. He crept over the pool of dead bodies, keeping close to the wall. At the edge, he stuck his head out and saw the barren landscape, saw the stars setting in the distance, and saw the large plant-like alien bearing down on him. The outer gun only got off three shots before it was upon him, crashing through the wall with a sickening boom.

Deron stumbled, unsure of where anything was anymore. He groped blindly for something to support him while simultaneously pointing his gun at the level boss. His aim was imprecise with one hand; it shook as more sparks zapped at his legs. Somehow he had missed the floodwaters gathering at his feet. The input stream was overwhelming, but he laughed out of frustration, remembering that it was all a game, knowing he would have the upper hand the next time around. He screamed his battle cry and swung around to face the enemy. Above him, the boss prepared for its main attack. It swung a thorny whip dangerously close to Deron’s face, making him recoil.

Off-balance, he fell backwards and struck his head on the barrier.

“Son of a bitch!” he yelled as the tendrils of pain erupted from his neck. Something angular had caught him in the same place Russo’s boot had, giving him a sharp reminder of his last memory before the coma. There wasn’t supposed to be real pain in the game, but that was the risk with the blended reality types. Gravity was gravity, simulation or not. Deron opened his eyes expecting to see the fly trap descending on him. Instead, there was only a drab gray roof crisscrossed by various pipes and wire bundles. Loudspeakers dotted the scaffolding every few feet, pointing in all directions. The night sky was gone, taking that somehow comforting infinity with it.

We do not stop.
Sebo’s words echoed, but the urgency was lost on him.

Deron sat up and took in the colorless environment. Instead of blood-splattered walls, all he saw were particle board barriers with white tape on their seams. The ground consisted of firm padding that rose and fell to give the impression of uneven terrain. After a moment of staring at the empty corridor, Deron became aware of the sound of aliens crawling along the floor and of guns firing in a controlled rhythm. All around him, the ambient noises ramped up, but there was nothing to look at, no alien marvels to behold. According to the squeals, the enemy was eating him alive. He stood despite the shocks radiating throughout his harness; their tiny zaps were nothing compared to the throbbing in his head. Using the wall for balance, Deron staggered to the end of the maze.

Where there had once been an alien landscape, there was now a wall, worn in places where previous players had tried to run through it, but otherwise just an everyday wall. Deron walked its length beyond the outer barrier until he came to a door. Its outline was recessed and barely visible. There was, however, a tiny indentation at waist level. Deron pulled it and found that the door slid into the wall. Inside, he found a darkened room and a thin man sitting at a desk. He was moving his hands over the plastic surface like a pianist over an imaginary keyboard.

“Holy shit!” said the man, finally noticing Deron. He ripped the headphones from his ears and stood up. “You scared the shit out of me.” Then, he seemed to remember himself. “You’re not supposed to be back here. How’d you even
get
back here?”

“The game glitched,” said Deron. “The sound’s still on but all the veneers are turned off. It looks...” A wave of warmth floated up through his body, tingling his extremities. The game-runner blurred out and then back in.

“The game’s fine,” he replied, sitting down again. He pointed to the blank wall above his desk as if there was something to see.

“But...” Deron reconsidered his question.

“I’m ending the level. You guys lost anyway.”

The prospect of defeat wasn’t fair; the game obviously had some problems. Now their names would go up on the boards as
Did Not Finish
. Grumbling his protest, Deron followed the man back through the maze, past the particle board and cannons made of foam. As they walked, it looked like the game was trying to recover; bits of veneer flashed here and there. By the time they reached the first level, most of it had come back.

“Where the fuck have you been?” asked Sebo as Deron entered the command room.

“Stupid game glitched,” he replied.

“It did?” Sebo looked at the displays on the window. “I didn’t see anything.”

Deron still felt woozy and for a moment he lost his balance. His quick grab of the wall made Sebo’s eyes widen.

“What happened to you?”

“I fell,” he explained. Then, rubbing the back of his neck, he added, “I hit my head.”

The color drained from Sebo’s veneer. “Do you need—?”

“No, I’m fine.” The lie didn’t help the pain in his head, but it was better than going back to the hospital. Without waiting for more questions, he exited into the ready room and sat down on the bench. The electrodes on his harness were still warm between his fingers as he dismantled it; they had gotten a good workout.

Sebo sat down across from him, his veneer cycling through various levels of concern. “You sure you’re alright?”

Deron shrugged. “My neck hurts, but not as bad as last time.”

“Last time,” said Sebo. He groaned as he undid the snaps on his vest. “You know we owe him, right?”

“Owe who?”

“Russo.” Sebo dragged out the syllables.

“And what do we owe him?”

“A fucking beating,” he replied, throwing his harness into a bin in the corner. He stood, agitated. “You know, when I was at Dahlstrom, they taught us some basic self-defense. If you would have had that kind of training, Russo wouldn’t have gotten away with it.”

Deron forced a laugh. “What the hell kind of school was that?”

“The kind where they don’t let in people like Russo.”

“Well,” said Deron, standing up, “it’s too late now.”

Sebo followed him out of the ready room and into the lobby. “It’s never too late, man. I know you’re all Zen about Russo, but he needs to have the shit kicked out of him for once in his life. We need to teach that fucker a lesson.”

A boisterous group of teenagers coming out of the Destined 4 Death room cut their conversation short. They were displaying the post-game euphoria that only full sensory immersion could provide. Swarm Survivor was good for its genre, but nothing beat virtual. Deron rolled his eyes at Sebo. For all the shit he was giving him about getting back at Russo, it had been his idea to play the safer game.

Safer, thought Deron, touching his neck. There was too much pain for a complete sentence.

At the front counter, an overweight man in a shiny purple suit looked from Sebo to Deron and back. “I don’t tolerate threats to my staff.” Beside him, the game-runner looked nervously at the floor.

“Who made a threat?” asked Sebo.

“You said you owed Lionel a beating. That’s a threat where I come from.”

Sebo smiled and cycled his eyes. “You are quite mistaken, kind sir. My friend and I were simply having a private discussion on the merits of retribution—a discussion, I might add, that does not concern you or this Lionel you speak of.”

“Just give me your fucking tickets and get out of my parlor.”

Deron tossed his tab onto the counter and nudged Sebo to do the same.

The fat man scanned the tabs into his palette. “Lionel says one of you fell and hit your head.”

“Yeah,” said Deron.

“Well, if you’re even thinking about suing us I’d remind you to remember the waiver you—”

Sebo feigned rebuke. “We wouldn’t dream of it, your corpulence.” He thumbed the portal on the counter to pay the bill and then pushed Deron along until they were outside. “That guy was a dick,” he said, once they were safely out of earshot. “They think just because someone signs a wavier that they don’t have any responsibility to help them. That’s the true American reality.” He rubbed his arms with his hands for several seconds before asking, “How did you fall?”

Deron smirked and reconciled a flickering clock on his sleeve. It was getting close to eleven; the last bus back to Easton would leave at half-past. “I was startled.”

“Pardon me?”

“I said I was startled,” he repeated, kicking at the litter on the sidewalk.

“Oh,” said Sebo, as if he had never considered the possibility. Then, in a very serious voice, “Was your character a woman?”

“This from the guy who locked himself in the command room where it was safe. I tangled with a twelve-foot plant!”

“And he kicked your ass.” Sebo crossed his arms.

Deron chuckled, surveyed the street for a place to eat. “Yeah, but I tangled with it. I did that shit.”

“And then the game glitched?”

“Damn right it did.” The memory of the gray maze flashed in his head. Everything had looked so strange without color, but it wasn’t a completely unfamiliar scene. Somewhere in his memory there were blank walls and empty palettes, but he couldn’t place it.

A sick part of him extended the absence of veneers to the entire world, creating a place where the sun was just a gray circle hanging in a gray sky, barely visible without any veneers to give off light.

Blinded by the darkness, thought Deron.

18 - Russo

A light mist had begun to fall by the time Agent Tavarez paused at the corner of Brazos and Eleventh Street. Russo had tailed him all the way from The Drag, at first blending in with the crowd and then keeping to the alleys and recessed windows as the population thinned out. Soon it was just Russo and Eric walking the streets, the night becoming more ominous as the veneers diminished. There was no expectation of midnight revelers this far out from downtown, so decorations were limited to the tops of buildings, beacons for condominiums and extended stay hotels that could be seen at a distance. Closer to street level, the only glow was from the running lights on the sidewalks and even those seemed to recede at the agent’s approach.

Tavarez stood motionless at the edge of the sidewalk. If he knew he was being followed, he wasn’t letting on.

Russo watched from a doorway, taking the opportunity to stretch his feet in his boots. While they were great for making an impression on Deron’s neck, he’d have chosen something more comfortable if he had known he’d be walking downtown Easton for an hour. At the same time, he wished for a jacket or long sleeves. His lack of preparation opened a pit in his stomach. For all the time he had put into staking out the PD, he hadn’t really planned for the confrontation that would follow.

The stone egg in his pocket was the closest thing he had to a weapon.

After a few minutes, the agent crushed out a cigarette that Russo hadn’t even seen him light. Then without looking for traffic, he crossed against the flashing red hand to the other side of Eleventh Street.

Russo looked up and saw that he was heading into the Brazos Place condominiums, a luxury high-rise that went up maybe thirty floors. Most of the windows were dark, their sills lit from below by ambient veneers. Only the ground level looked alive, though the only person Russo could see was a bored cashier behind the counter of a small eatery in the building’s corner. An etching program was running on its windows, filling them with swirling lines that grew from the bottom and then shimmered into nothing. Russo watched the agent through this pulsating curtain as he ordered a late dinner.

When the cashier turned to make his meal, Tavarez drifted to the windows to survey the intersection. The way he crossed his hands behind his back gave Russo the impression of a man standing guard.

“We’re all criminals, aren’t we?” asked Russo. He had moved closer while the agent’s back was turned and from his new hiding place he could see the look of determination on Eric’s face. He was scouting for prey.

It was common for uniforms to look for the worst in people. To them, everyone had the capacity to break the law. Easton was populated by millions of time bombs, each one ready to go off in a blast of civil disobedience at a moment’s notice. The only option was a pre-emptive strike. It was as easy as picking out a random citizen and busting them for minding their own business.

But Tavarez was not a uniform and he wasn’t Easton PD. So why the night watch act?

The cashier dropped a paper sack onto the counter and called the agent over. Tavarez collected his dinner and headed back towards the foyer, disappearing behind the large outer doors of the building.

Russo took a deep breath, counted to twenty, and then darted across the street. The doors opened inward as he approached and revealed a lobby with a rustic design full of brands and silhouetted livestock. A marble veneer covered the floor, providing a light background to the black B within a star that someone had reconciled in the middle of the room. Russo looked past the decorations to the slight shoe prints of a man who had just come in off the damp streets. The first line veered left into the cafe; the other came from that direction and went forward through two saloon-style doors. A portal off to the right said
Elevators
.

Pushing through, Russo found himself in an octagonal lobby with two elevators on each side. A circular couch occupied the middle of the room, providing respite to an older man who sat absorbed in his palette. He said nothing as Russo moved to the elevators to examine the building directory. The list of names was long, but not one of them was Eric Tavarez. He cursed as the directory auto-scrolled back to the top.

“Are you looking for someone?” asked the man on the couch. His voice was soft and cordial, tinged with a rare southern accent. When he looked up, Russo saw that his eyes had a white film over them.

“Did you see a guy come through here?”

“Lots of people come through here,” he replied, scrolling to the next page on his palette. “What did he look like?”

“He’s an agent, about this tall.” Russo put out his hand.

“An
agent
? In my building?”

“Yeah. I saw him come in here.” He swiped at the directory again and set it scrolling.

The old man took a quick look around the room. “I didn’t see anyone.”