Virtually Dead Read online

  She let out a startled yell, and great clouds of black smoke started issuing from the hole that Chas had just shot through her middle, very quickly enveloping her entirely. He watched in horror as she started running about the stage, the smoke following her everywhere she went. Tommy Tattoo put his hands on his hips and roared with laughter.

  Chas was aware of a figure materialising at his side. He turned to find a young woman standing there. She had long, dark hair, and an elfin face with rich, chocolate brown eyes which she fixed on him with a look of patent disbelief. Her name tag revealed her to be Sinful Sensations Dancer Doobie Littlething. Except that she wasn’t dressed like a dancer. She wore a low-cut grey camouflage top and shorts, a pistol strapped to her thigh, an equipment belt laden with tools and a water flask, and armoured pads protecting her hips and shins.

  Doobie: Did you do that?

  Chas: Do what?

  Doobie: Shoot the dancer.

  Chas was getting used to blushing by now.

  Chas: It was an accident.

  She looked at his tag.

  Doobie: Private detective, huh? Are you with the Twist agency?

  He nodded.

  Doobie: Where’s Twist?

  Chas: Crashed.

  Doobie: Fucking useless!

  For some reason Chas was shocked by her language. But she was already on the move. Striding toward the stage. She sprang up in a forward somersault, and landed right next to the tattooed troublemaker, her weapon drawn. And some dissociated part of Chas thought how incredibly attractive she looked: her hair swept back from her face, a slash of crimson cupid for her mouth, the tiny heart-shaped birthmark high on her cheek next to her right eye. He even noticed the streaks of red in her dark hair.

  The dancer was still running around the stage, bleeding smoke. No one was dancing any more. The music had stopped, and everyone stood in silence waiting to see what would happen next.

  Tommy Tattoo turned toward Doobie and leered at her.

  Tommy: Orbit, you bitch!

  A sprinkle of lights appeared and disappeared. But Doobie remained where she was, her handgun held up next to her head, pointed at the ceiling.

  Tattoo: WTF?

  Doobie: I’m shielded, shit-for-brains! Prepare to crash and burn in hell!

  Her handgun was suddenly extended at arm’s length, pointed straight at Tommy, and Chas knew that she had gone into Mouselook. But before she could fire, Tommy Tattoo vanished in a flash of light.

  Doobie: Shit!

  And she too, vanished, leaving the stage empty, apart from the smoking dancer. Chas barely had time to resurrect his sense of guilt before an offer appeared on his screen. Doobie Littlething invites Chas Chesnokov to join her in Crack Town. He accepted, and in a whoosh his screen went black, before he found himself dropping to his knees on the decaying wooden porch of a grim derelict brick building in the heart of a dark, oppressive cityscape. He stood up and looked around. This condemned building had been fenced off. But one section of the fence had been broken down and the door of the building ripped open.

  He was in a long, gloomy street. Immediately opposite, a police patrol car with flashing lights was drawn up in the entrance to a covered parking lot that seemed to be occupied by down-and-outs and prostitutes. A uniformed officer stood by a fluttering black and yellow Crime Scene tape, and watched him with casual indifference. Chas could hear static and a dispatcher’s voice coming across the police radio.

  Further down the street, beneath a poster of a Rottweiler bearing the logo make my day, an AV sprawled in the street in a pool of fresh blood. A gun lay next to his head. A hooker stood, arms folded, outside the doors of the Carnal City Police Department. Some youths sat on a wall, dangling their legs, indulging in idle conversation. But there was no sign of Doobie or Tattoo Tommy.

  Chas turned back to the derelict building and peered apprehensively inside before taking a few tentative steps into the semi-darkness.

  To his left, a tattered settee and two old armchairs were gathered around a 1950s TV set. An old packing case served as a table. The space was littered with what Chas now recognised to be poseballs. They were everywhere in SL. Pink for females, blue for males. A right-click on a poseball attached you to it, and your AV would be animated by its script to do almost anything. Sit, chat, have sex, play a piano. And so much in SL seemed sex-oriented. Give blow job. Receive blow job. Wallfuck. Two poseballs that said Love seemed somehow incongruous. On the wall hung a painting of Jesus dressed as pirate.

  The room to his left was a bathroom. Above the bath were two poseballs. Drowned and DrowningHold. Pornographic posters covered brick walls.

  The next room along the corridor was a filthy kitchen with cockroaches running around the floor. Off to the left, a room with a mattress. Rats scuttled about the place, disturbing the drifts of litter that had accumulated there.

  At the end of the corridor, Chas emerged into the gloom of a stretch of waste ground, where a pile of burning tires belched oily black smoke into the night sky. A hobo wrapped up in old newspapers huddled nearby for warmth. Graffiti on the wall opposite read, Religion is not the opium of the masses. Opium is.

  Chas climbed a ramp to the street above. Next to a scarred blue tenement door opposite, a sign advertised apartments for rent. And he wondered who in their right minds would want to rent an apartment in a place like this. It was like the worst nightmare of social urban decay. In an alleyway further down the street, two poseballs against a colourfully graffitied wall read, Strangle and Strangled.

  He turned left and crossed a bridge over a stream of chemical green sludge. He could hear the sound of distant traffic flashing past on the freeway, the constant wail of a police siren, before a shadow flashed across his screen. A startling explosion of light sent multicoloured particles flying in every direction. When they cleared, Tommy Tattoo was crouched in front of him in the middle of the road, a maniacal grin on his face. He stood up and seemed to tower over Chas as he raised his axe high above his head. Chas was rooted to the spot by fear, even though he was nearly certain that this avatar could do him no damage. All the same, he fumbled and clicked on the hud to activate his handgun. But too late. The axe was descending on him. No time to move, or to TP out.

  But Tommy Tattoo froze in midstroke as the black bars of a tightly meshed cage closed around him, and held him immobile inside it.

  Tommy: FUCK!

  Doobie Littlething dropped out of the sky and landed beside them. She turned to Chas.

  Doobie: So you decided to put in an appearance after all.

  Chas: Well, with an invitation from a gun-toting dancer to join her and a tattooed maniac in a place called Crack Town, how could I resist?

  Doobie stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing.

  Doobie: Well, you may be incompetent, but at least you have a sense of humour.

  Tommy: I hate to break up this cosy little mutual admiration society, but would someone like to tell me exactly how long I’m going to be stuck in here?

  Doobie turned around.

  Doobie: Just as long as it takes to blow a hole in your brainless head, set your AV on fire, and crash you so hard it’ll take you a week to get back in.

  Tommy: Yeh, right.

  Doobie: Watch me.

  She drew her weapon, cocked it, held it at arm’s length and fired twice into the cage, blowing holes right through Tommy’s head and chest. She recocked it and fired again, this time setting him on fire.

  A stream of abuse and profanity issued like smoke from the stricken Tommy, before Doobie recocked again and shot AV and cage straight up into the sky. Chas swivelled to look up, but Tattoo Tommy had already gone.

  Chas: Did you destroy him?

  Doobie: No, Mr. Chesnokov. You can’t destroy an AV. You can damage him, make him crash. Nothing permanent. But he’ll think twice about messing with Doobs the next time.

  Chas took a step back, sudden excitement rising through him, and drew his weapon again, this time selecting Dam
age from his menu. He spun around to point it at Doobie and went straight into Mouselook.

  She was so startled she had no time to react.

  Doobie: WTF!

  Chas fired three times and Doobie spun out of the way, turning in time to see three AV’s running around with smoke escaping from huge holes blown straight through the chest of each.

  Doobie: Great shooting, Chas!

  Chas allowed himself a small smile of self-congratulation.

  Chas: I know how to handle a gun, Doobie. I came first on the practice range in training.

  Doobie: Good for you. Just one little thing. Why did you shoot these guys?

  Chas: They were sneaking up on us, Doobie. Pretty unsavoury looking characters. I thought they could be friends of Tommy Tattoo.

  Doobie threw her head back and roared with laughter.

  Doobie: People like Tommy Tattoo don’t have friends, Chas. They were just three AVs out for a bit of fun. Role-playing probably. LOL. That’s the fourth innocent AV you’ve shot the fuck out of in the space of ten minutes. We’d better get you out of here before you get reported and Linden Lab ban you for life.

  Before he could open his mouth to make excuses, Doobie was gone. And an invitation appeared to join her at the Armory Overstock in Shepherd. Chas accepted and glanced at the time. He had been in Second Life for less than two hours, and it felt like two days.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Spread over the vast indoor floorspace of a huge, brick warehouse, the Armory Overstock sold everything from armoured vehicles, helicopters and troop carriers, to personal weapons, bugging devices and gridwide radar systems.

  Chas landed with a thump next to Doobie, in front of an enormous welcome board and a water fountain. He looked about as the store began to take shape around him.

  Doobie: It’s taking a while to rez today.

  Chas: Rez?

  Doobie: For things to upload and become focused. SL is responsible for introducing a lot of new words to the English language.

  Chas: If only they made things any clearer. I have so many initial letters going round my head, I’m beginning to feel like a walking acronym.

  Doobie Littlething: Oh, good word, Chas.

  An invitation appeared. Doobie Littlething is offering you Friendship. Accept or Decline. Chas hesitated for only a moment before clicking to accept.

  Chas: So that makes us friends now, does it? It’s not that long ago I was “fucking incompetent”.

  Doobie: Hahahaha. Yes, well, that probably hasn’t changed. Though maybe we can do something about it. But you know, Chas, I haven’t met that many people in here who would know what an acronym was. That makes you a little unusual. And maybe worth knowing.

  Unexpectedly, she did a little backward flip, landing on her tip-toes and holding out her arms for balance, like a ballet dancer.

  Doobie: Follow me.

  Chas struggled to keep up as Doobie strode off across the floor, dodging banners and stands.

  Chas: What are we here for?

  Doobie: To get you an AV radar tracking system. You clearly have no idea what’s going on around you. Which is something of a disadvantage for a private investigator. Where is your partner, by the way? Did he ever show up again?

  Chas: Twist? No, he never did.

  Doobie: Must’ve been a bad crash, then. Sometimes it can take forever to get back online.

  They walked past giant billboards advertising weapons and bugging devices. One promoted a mosquito, which it claimed was SL’s smallest weapon. Each one, it promised, would target the person of your choice and keep attacking until you called it off. It also offered the opportunity to rez multiple mosquitoes for swarming attacks.

  Another described itself as a Covert Ops Clock.

  Chas: Innoculous-looking clock (and scripts) spy on the unsuspecting. Shouldn’t that be “innocuous”? Unless of course it’s some kind of clock that injects its victims. Maybe its hands are hypodermic syringes.

  Doobie Littlething laughs long and loud.

  Doobie: You are a funny man, Chas.

  Chas: LOLOL. But really, Doobs, there are all these clever people who can write complex software scripts but can barely spell, or conjugate a verb. Makes you wonder where the world of communication will finish up.

  Doobie: Probably in a bunch of acronyms that nobody understands.

  In the end, Doobie selected a simple radar hud that would provide Chas with a permanent display, letting him know exactly who was within ninety-six metres of him at any given time, with the option of caging or orbiting anyone who seemed threatening.

  Doobie: Just 500 Lindens

  Chas checked his Linden total.

  Chas: I don’t have enough, Doobs.

  Doobie Littlething sighs.

  Doobie: Okay, here, I’ll lend it to you. But in return I’ll expect you to take me out to dinner.

  A cash register sounded, and 500 Lindens were paid into Chas’ account. He purchased the radar and filed it in his inventory for later.

  Chas: How can I take you out to dinner, Doobie? Man cannot live by pixels alone.

  Doobie: Hahahaha. Don’t worry, Chas. I know the very place. And their deep-fried pixels in batter are excellent.

  ***

  Chas followed Doobie’s TP and found himself on a breezy island filled with flowers and trees, jagged green rocks rising up to pierce the purest of blue skies. They were in a garden with pink petals falling all around them like snow. Parasols shaded circular glass tables. Slow-dance poseballs were scattered around a lush, green lawn. Finger food and a bottle of champagne chilling in a bucket were laid out on a buffet table.

  Doobie: You see, not everywhere in SL is seedy or violent.

  Chas: Where are we?

  Doobie: Midsomer Isle. This place is known as Puck’s Hideaway. Quite romantic, really.

  Chas turned around and saw that Doobie had changed out of her armour and camouflage and was now sporting a black beret, black scarf, and a cream chiffon top, with tight, black, three-quarter length pants.

  Chas: So why did you bring me here?

  Doobie: Because you made me laugh. And because you owe me 500 lindens. I always believe in looking after my investments. Come on, take a look at the island.

  And she soared up into the sky. Chas followed and they hovered together for a few minutes looking at the view spread out below them. It was spectacular. Chas could never have imagined that something like this might exist in a virtual world. Waterfalls and minarets, hidden terraces, domed pavilions, and private houses tucked away in hidden coves, rocky pinnacles rising on all sides. He looked again at Doobie’s name tag.

  Chas: So why do you dance?

  Doobie: For money, of course. I have to finance my shopping sprees somehow.

  Chas: What do you buy?

  Doobie: Well, when I’m not buying guns or weapons, it would be clothes, or hair, or new skins.

  Chas: You change your appearance, then?

  Doobie: From time to time. When you’re a dancer, you have to keep up with the rest. Got to look good or you lose your job.

  Chas: But you’re really more of a stripper than a dancer. If what I saw at Sinful Sensations was anything to go by.

  Doobie Littlething shrugs.

  Doobie: Sure. What’s wrong with that? I’m also an escort.

  Chas: Really? What does an escort do?

  Doobie: Hahahaha. You’re kidding me, Chas. What does an escort do in RL?

  Chas: You’re a prostitute?

  Doobie: I prefer “hooker”. It’s a little sluttier, don’t you think? LOL. Yeh, sure. I have sex for money.

  Chas gazed at her in amazement. Then remembered his own missing parts.

  Chas: How on earth does an AV have sex?

  Doobie Littlething laughs till she’s fit to burst.

  Doobie: My God, you really are a newbie, aren’t you. Let’s have a look at your profile.

  A brief pause.

  Doobie: OMG! You only came in today! No wonder you know sweet
FA.

  Chas called up Doobie’s profile and saw that she had been “born” nearly three years ago. There was a picture of her, and her info panel described her as an escort, model, and exotic dancer. IM me for my rate card, it implored potential clients. Chas clicked the 1st Life tab, but that window was empty.

  Chas: You have a rate card?

  Doobie: Sure. I’ll give you my rates. Are you interested in having sex with me?

  A blue window appeared to let him know that Doobie Littlething was making him an offer. He declined it hastily and felt himself blushing again.

  Chas: No, I do not want to have sex with you.

  He paused.

  Chas: And anyway, I don’t have a penis.

  Doobie: LOLOLOLOL! Well, that would make it a little difficult. Let me take you to my favourite spot.

  She turned and soared off into the gathering gloom, and as Chas followed, he saw the sun setting on the horizon, sending jewels of claret sparkling across the darkening ocean. A domed, circular terrace surrounded by painted columns was perched on the edge of the cliff, looking directly out across the sunset.

  Doobie dropped like a stone, landing right on the edge of the terrace, and Chas followed. For a moment he held his breath. For set in the middle of the terrace, on a Persian rug, was a large, square chess table laid out with a full complement of chessmen, chairs facing each other across the battlefield. The sunset was lined up perfectly with the four rows of squares between the opposing players.

  Doobie: You probably don’t play. Not many people seem to these days. But I love the mental challenge of it. And I love a man who can push me to my limits. In all sorts of ways. I sometimes come here on my own and play against myself. LOL. That’s a unique kind of challenge.