Virtually Dead Read online

  Chas: You’re kidding!

  Twist: No, I’m dead serious, Chas. Here…

  An invitation appeared inviting him to join a Group called the Twist of Fate Detective Agency. He accepted, and immediately the tag above his head read, Private Detective Chas Chesnokov.

  Twist: Great. Welcome to the agency, Chas. You are now officially a detective.

  A pop-up asked permission for Twist to animate his avatar. As soon as he agreed, Twist advanced toward him, and the two AVs put their arms around each other in an intimate hug.

  Chas: Hey! What are you doing?

  Twist: Giving you a hug.

  Chas: I’m not in the habit of hugging men.

  Twist: LOL. Don’t worry, it’ll be our secret.

  If Chas could have frowned, he would have.

  Chas: What’s this LOL you keep saying?

  Twist: Laughs out loud, Chas. LOL. Anyway, now you’re part of the Group, you can set this office as your Home. It’s where you will log in from now on. If I’m not here, you just click on the door to get in and out. Or you can TP. Come on, I’ll show you a little trick.

  Twist opened the door and Chas followed him outside. It closed again behind them. He glanced down the row of shops. One was selling furniture. Another sold Skins. A third was peddling animations. And yet another had its windows filled with hair and clothes. AVs were drifting in and out of the stores or standing chatting in groups.

  Chas turned around and bumped into Twist.

  Twist: Pay attention Chas! This is important.

  And Twist described a maneouvre with mouse and alt key that enabled Chas to move his POV from the exterior of the building to the interior, swinging past the outside wall. Chas did as instructed and found that he could see inside the office as if he were there.

  Twist: Now click anywhere inside to move around. Magic, huh? You can see through brick walls. Very handy for a PI. Oh, and you can actually go inside, too. Even if the door is locked. Right-click on any of the chairs inside and you’ll get an option to Sit. Click on it, and abracadabra, you’ll be sitting in that chair. You’ll see a Stand Up button on your toolbar. Click that and you’re in.

  Again, Chas followed Twists’ instructions, and in an instant found himself sitting in one of the armchairs inside the office. Twist came back in through the door.

  Twist: See? Just like magic.

  For a moment he stood looking at Chas, to the point where Chas almost began to feel uncomfortable. It was odd how he was projecting his insecurities into the expressions of an expressionless avatar. But somehow they seemed real.

  Chas: What?

  Twist: I was just thinking, Chas. You look like such a newbie. We’re going to need to get you a whole new look. And a whole new wardrobe. A weapon would be good, too.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The huge brownstone building that housed the Body Doubles shopping mall stood on the edge of a lake bordered by trees that swayed in the breeze. Twist and Chas TPed into an arrival point just outside. Large posters of seductive AVs on the wall advertised the store as image consultants. A ramp led across a moat, guarded by a tiger, to the main entrance. Just inside the front door, a scantily clad blonde wearing a bra, a Stetson, and not much else stood on a circular podium welcoming shoppers to the store. Beyond, a vast two-tiered gallery displayed images around four walls of glamorous-looking men and women, film and rock star lookalikes.

  Chas gazed around in amazement. He recognised AV doubles of Josh Duhamel, Halle Berry, Jessica Alba.

  Chas: What on earth is this place?

  Twist: This is where we’re going to buy you a new body shape, and maybe a skin.

  Chas: Skin?

  Twist: LOL. The outside bit. Just like on real people. The stuff that makes you look the way you are. Come on.

  Chas followed Twist up a flight of semicircular stairs and along the length of a catwalk populated by Body Doubles models, one sporting a new Dita Von Teese shape, another the double of Scarlett Johansson. None of the models paid them any attention as they walked past and climbed a long flight of stairs to the upper gallery.

  The whole right-hand wall was devoted to male sports stars, actors, and singers. Tiger Woods, Tom Cruise, Mick Jagger.

  Twist: So who would you like to be?

  Chas: I don’t want to be anyone. What’s wrong with how I look now?

  Twist: Well, for a start there will be thousands of others who look just like you. And anyone who’s been in here for five minutes can spot a newbie at a hundred paces. What about Russell Crowe, like he was in The Gladiator?

  Chas: No.

  Twist: Elvis Presley.

  Chas: Definitely not!

  Twist: Enrique Iglesias, then. He’s sexy.

  Chas: Twist…

  But Twist interrupted.

  Twist: Brad Pitt! Oh, yeh. Gotta be, Chas. I have always fancied Brad Pitt. He is soooo gorgeous.

  Chas glanced around to see if anyone was listening to them.

  Chas: Hey, keep it down, Twist. People’ll think you’re gay.

  Twist: LOL. Listen, Chas. You’ll find out pretty fast. People in here don’t give a damn what you are.

  Twist led him along the gallery to the Brad Pitt poster. The lookalike AV was posing bare-chested, and from another POV, wearing black jacket and blue jeans, arms folded high across his chest.

  Twist: Look at him, he’s adorable. Do you have any money?

  Chas: Not that I know of. How can I tell?

  Twist: Top right hand side of your screen. Small green letters. Tells you how many Lindens you have.

  Chas: Lindens?

  Twist: Linden dollars. SL has its own economy, Chas. A real economy with its own currency and a fluctuating exchange rate with the US dollar. Currently around 245 Lindens per dollar. People have made millions in here, literally. Mostly buying and selling virtual land.

  Chas laughed.

  Chas: You mean, people are making millions buying and selling nothing? Pixels?

  Twist: You’d better believe it. And no way to trace the transactions. The money can come in from anywhere, pass through any number of hands completely undetected, and go out the other end with no way of tracing it back. And I’m not just talking millions of Lindens, I’m talking millions of dollars, Chas.

  Twist swivelled to look at him.

  Twist: I’ll transfer some cash to you right now. You can pay me back. Next time you go on to the website, register a credit card and you can buy as many Lindens as you like.

  A cash register sounded, and a confirmation appeared that Twist had just paid Chas L$5,000.

  Chas: Jeez, Twist. Five thousand?

  Twist: LOL. That’s about twenty bucks. I’ll want it back tomorrow. So, go ahead. Buy Brad. He’s only five hundred.

  Chas did as he was told, and a cash register rang again to confirm the sale.

  Twist: Okay, that’s gone into your Inventory folder. Everything you have and will ever own is going to be stored in there.

  Chas opened up his Inventory and saw the folder of Brad Pitt items he had just bought.

  Twist: A notecard should tell us where to go for the rest of you. Skin, eyes, clothes. LOL. You are going to be such a hunk by the time I’ve finished with you.

  ***

  The classy indoor mall where Twist and Chas shopped for the recommended skin, hair, and eyes to go with the Brad Pitt body shape was called Naughty Island. The skin was labelled Gabriel, Golden Tan with Facial Hair 4, and a picture of it showed a pretty boy who looked pretty much as you imagined the archangel might look. They found poster displays of it on a wall in the Naughty Store.

  Twist: Goddamn! It’s 1500 Lindens!

  Twist was incensed.

  Twist: It’s a ripoff. Five hundred for the shape, then you have to fork out another fifteen hundred for the skin. God knows what the hair and eyes will cost!

  As it turned out, the Paris Blue Eyes cost L$500, and the Untamed in Golden Bay Multitonal III hairstyle, available in the Influence Store right next doo
r, cost another L$300.

  Twist regarded Chas speculatively

  Twist: Okay, let’s try it all on.

  Chas: What, here?

  He looked around. The place was full of customers.

  Chas: People will definitely think we’re gay!

  A shop assistant called Queen Akina approached. She was stunningly beautiful, with long silken brown hair, a low-cut blouse, and baggy plus-four shorts above the curve of shapely calves that were stretched taut on extremely high heels. She ignored Chas, and some animation she possessed made her bare her teeth at Twist in what she imagined was a seductive smile.

  Queen: Can I help you?

  Twist: Well, if you’re free this evening, that could probably be arranged.

  Queen Akina giggles.

  Chas’ IM dialogue box opened up and a message appeared in it from Twist.

  Twist: See, men in here just come right out and say it. And, by the way, don’t worry. IM’s are private. Just between us.

  Chas: Twist, you aren’t a guy!

  Twist: Hehehe. I am in here. And she has no idea. She’d be all over me given half a chance. Sometimes I am really disappointed by my own sex. But it’s okay, she won’t give you a second look until you’re Brad Pitt. Right now you’re just a goofy newbie that no chick worth her salt would give a second glance.

  Twist turned back to the shop assistant.

  Twist: So what do you say, babe?

  Queen: Well…I finish here about seven. So if you want to drop me an IM…

  Chas: This is embarrassing.

  He moved away to find a quiet corner and walked into a display rack laden with boxes of hairstyles. He tried to correct and walked smack into a wall. Heads turned in his direction.

  Twist: Jesus, Chas! You’re the embarrassment. Let’s get you out of here.

  ***

  Back at the Naughty Store, there was a corner partitioned off for customers to try on demo skins, or skins they had just bought. Chas was about to make the whole transformation. Twist followed him behind the screen.

  Twist: Better if you take your clothes off. We’ll get the full effect that way.

  Chas: I’m not stripping off in here, Twist.

  Twist: Oh, don’t be so modest, Chas. No one’s looking. LOL. Except me. And in any case, you don’t have any dick to cover up.

  Chas: I don’t?

  Chas was unaccountably disappointed.

  Twist: No. If you want a penis you’re going to have to buy yourself one. I would recommend a multisized, tintable, with and without foreskin, and a side order of nipples. But that’s for another day. Now, come on, strip off.

  Reluctantly Chas did as he was told and was soon stark naked, standing only in his shoes. It seemed odd to have nothing dangling between his legs. If he could have blushed, he would.

  Twist: Right, now just drag and drop everything we have bought on to your AV. Body shape, skin, eyes, hair.

  Chas watched in amazement as he transformed into a tanned, muscular young man with startling blue eyes, a shock of blond hair, and just the hint of a light goatee. He particularly liked his six-pack. No matter how much he worked out in RL, he had never managed to produce muscle tone like that.

  Twist: Wow! Baby, you are HOT!

  Chas blushed beyond his screen, quickly found his clothes in his Inventory, and put them back on.

  Twist: Spoilsport. Oh, well, never mind. Time to get you a gun.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Gunslinger Armaments, Ltd., was located in a seedy corner of SL called Excalibur. Twist and Chas teleported into a car park surrounded by a protective mesh fence topped with razor wire. Weeds poked up through cracks in the tarmac. Thick, black smoke rose from an oil drum filled with garbage in a corner piled high with discarded boxes and old packing cases. An empty Coke can rattled about in the wind, and green security laser beams tracked back and forth across the yard from the other side of smoked glass windows. Beyond the fence lay a few rundown houses in a copse of trees and a deserted-looking tower block.

  A brown guard dog called Jaeger came out and sniffed around them. Jaeger and Twist seemed to be on speaking terms.

  Twist: Hey, boy. Good dog.

  Twist walked straight through the glass of the sliding door, and Chas followed.

  A sandpit and target shooting area, with a bullseye transposed over the head of Osama Bin Laden, opened up on their left. A display of the five models of handgun created by Kurosawa presented themselves for sale on the wall in front of them. A staircase off to their right led up to his office. Chas followed Twist up the stairs.

  Twist: He handcrafts these weapons himself you know. Faithful replicas of the Colt 911. Writes his own scripts, too. Ever want to know anything about guns, Gunslinger is the man to talk to.

  Kurosawa sat behind a green glass-topped office desk, a cigarette burning between his middle and fourth fingers. An animated sketch of a Colt handgun fired relentlessly on the wall behind him. A huge metal safe stood in the corner and a digital counter on the wall charted sales. From his office Kurosawa had a panoramic view over the carpark. It didn’t quite match up, Chas thought, to his own RL view over Balboa Island.

  Kurosawa himself was younger than Chas had been expecting. He had a shock of auburn hair with a pair of sunglasses pushed well up into it, and a half-grown beard. A leather holster belt hung across the shoulder of a black shirt. He wore blue jeans and boots with stirrups that chinked as he put both feet up on the desk, one crossed over the other.

  Kurosawa: Hey, Twist. Howya doing?

  Twist: I’m doing good, Kuro. This is my partner, Chas. We need to get him a gun, so I thought we’d ask your advice.

  Kurosawa swivelled in his seat to take a look at Chas.

  Kurosawa: Brad Pitt, huh? You been at Body Doubles?

  Twist: LOL. How’d you guess, Kuro?

  Gunslinger Kurosawa smiles.

  Kurosawa: So you’ll be doing the same sort of work as Twist, then, Chas?

  Chas: I guess I will.

  Kurosawa: Well, you couldn’t do much better than the 1911A1 Custom. It’s got great detail. Hud-driven.

  Twist turned to Chas.

  Twist: That means a menu will come up on your screen.

  Kurosawa: Oh, a newbie, huh? Well, all the better. The Custom’s idiot-proof.

  Chas wasn’t certain that he enjoyed being called an idiot

  Kurosawa: It’s got a speed holster, smoking shell casings, tracking smoke, an invisible trap, standard damage and push, and six shield-crushing bullets. A bargain at a mere 1000 lindens.

  Chas glanced up at the green figure in the top right of his screen to see that he had just enough left to cover it.

  Chas: Okay. Let’s do it.

  So they went back down to the store and Chas made the purchase. He attached the holster to his right thigh, then dragged the gun to the holster. A red hud appeared at the top of his screen.

  Kurosawa: Make your choice of bullet, and use mouselook to line up the sight with your target and shoot.

  Chas: Mouselook?

  Twist: Yeh. The whole screen becomes your POV. Moves with the mouse. Click and fire.

  Kurosawa: Try it out on the shooting range. Get in a bit of practice.

  Kurosawa headed for the sandpit to set it up for a practice session.

  Twist: Hang on guys, I’m getting an IM.

  Twist seemed lost for a few moments. Then,

  Twist: Shit, sorry Kuro, we’ve gotta go. Harassment case I’ve been working on at a nightclub. The guy’s there now. Gotta go get him.

  Twist turned to Chas.

  Twist: Come on then, big boy. Your first job.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Sinful Seductions night club was a skybox 595 metres up above a mall and a small colony of houses on Lancelot Island. Access to the club was through a transparent image of a fiery dark-haired woman sporting a sword and pistol. Twist and Chas just breezed right through it. The blue velvet dance floor was crowded, AVs animated in dance by a central ball that
hung from the ceiling. Exotic dancers were pole dancing on the stage. Four of them. Each with her own tip jar. Chas stood for a moment, watching them, open-mouthed, as they removed items of clothing in response to cash paid into their jars by salivating male customers. These were the most sophisticated AVs he had seen yet. Beautifully sculpted, with tanned, shiny skin and such fluid animation that he could almost believe they were real.

  The predominant colour scheme of the club was blue and grey, punctuated by odd flashes of a fiery red. A sign behind the stage read Sin Is a Seduction of the Soul. A flight of stairs led up to a honeycomb of private rooms and a gallery that ran the length of the club. From here there was a view of the dance floor and the DJ’s podium on the opposite stage. Torches flamed in the dark, throwing shadows across the dancers, and Chas felt the beat of the music pounding through his AV.

  The crowd parted as a large, bald-headed avatar, covered from head to foot with elaborate tattoos, ran through the crowd swinging an axe above his head. His name tag identified him, appropriately, as Tommy Tattoo. He had an enormously erect penis that was clearing a path ahead of him, and he left a trail of obscenities in his wake. Anyone who got in his way just seemed to vanish.

  Twist: That’s our man, Chas. He’s got an orbiter.

  Chas: A what?

  Twist: It’s a gadget that sends anyone he targets flying into space. But it’s okay. I’m wearing a shield. He can’t do anything to me.

  Chas: What are you going to do to him?

  Twist: Cage him. Then fire him straight to the other end of SL, and file a report with Linden Lab to get him barred inworld. Come on. Get your gun out.

  They drew their weapons and pushed through the dancers toward the advancing AV, and suddenly Twist stopped dead.

  Twist: Oh, shit!

  Chas: What is it?

  Twist: I’m gonna crash.

  Chas: Goddamnit, Twist, you pick your moments!

  But Twist was already gone, in a twinkle of fading sparkles. Chas turned around to face Tommy Tattoo, gun swinging unsteadily in his direction. He fumbled to get into Mouselook. But before he could, Tommy took off. Lifting right up over his head. And as Chas turned, he saw him landing on the stage, next to one of the dancers. He immediately activated some dance animation and began circling her, gyrating his hips lewdly. Chas managed finally to get himself into Mouselook. A small gunsight appeared in the centre of his screen, and it immediately became apparent to him that lining it up with a moving target was a lot more difficult than it sounded. He swung left to right, overreacting, then under-reacting, until finally the tattooed man was in his sights. He pulled the trigger and somehow managed to shoot the dancer.