A new icon appears in my glasses, and I tap my fingers to open it. Brand’s portal opens before me, the inside of a comfortable plantation-style house with sunlight streaming through the windows. Chairs and sofas with green upholstery dot each bookshelf-lined room. Wooden fans creak lazily overhead. The shelves hold a mishmash of books, trinkets, painted miniatures, and more—digital representations of what Brand considered important enough to save as a memory. It looks like the inside of a teenager’s room from an emodrama, the girl with a quirky personality but still the cherished daughter—like stepping back into a history show or a dryburb, a home before the Split and the Dubs. Dogs bark outside, the joyous woofs of animals playing. It’s not full hap, but it’s still engrossing.
“What are we looking for?” I ask quietly.
I direct my viewpoint to approach a bookshelf and pick up a small figure of a fighter jet, the haptic feedback in my gloves making it feel like I’m holding the real thing. Root access allows us to handle any of Brand’s data without triggering security measures—to the portal, Jase and I might as well be Brand. Our encounter in the Clancery facet starts replaying in front of me—Slend, Wind, Brand, and myself, each in the cockpit of a latest-generation fighter, clearing a path for a landing force of hapdrones, other guilds in formation around us. Missiles streak from anti-air emplacements, tracers burn against the daytime sky, but we’re swooping and diving like falcons, taking out battery after battery with bombs and gunfire, outperforming everyone else easily. Golden sigils fill the background, viewers riding our eyes. The memory ends with us parachuting down, hair whipping from the back of our helmets, or, in Wind’s case, all over her entire body, triumphant music echoing from the heavens.
“Something corporate,” Jase responds. “A sponsorship offer or something. A way for them to get the hood to her before they release it to the public.”
I put the fighter jet miniature back down and look at the shelf—the next item is a photo of us in an obsolete tank, all smiles and thumbs-up under a desert sun, goggles pushed up on sand weathered foreheads. MilHist facet. Another is a music box, four figures in ballroom gowns slowly twirling inside—the Court of Roses intrigue encounter, in the nonviolent Masquerade facet. Where I first met Ham. I reach toward it, but then force my fingers to fall. We’re not here for memories. I glance around the room, then head for an old rolltop desk set against one wall. It’s the only item that seems not to fit, somehow. I flip back the hood and wince.
“It’s probably in here, Jase. Come help me wade through this crap.”
Giant rats, their sable fur bristling, glare up at me with beady red eyes. They bare fangs like small knives and hiss. There seems to be no end of them, the desk extending back much farther than the wall it’s up against. I pick one of the rats up—a rape threat from an IonSeal member scrolls out in front of me, full of vileness and spite. I grimace, and dash the rat to the ground. It disappears, message deleted.
“What is all this?”
I see invisible hands pick up another rat, then throw it to the ground as well.
“Her hate mail. She must not have had a deletion program like I did, so she stored it all in here, going through it when she could to keep from getting charged. I wish she’d said something to me.”
I flip through four more snarling messages. Jase sounds shocked.
“I knew it was bad, but I never realized it was this bad. What these people are saying… fuck.”
Another rat hits the floor.
“Yeah, welcome to life as a target, and she didn’t even have to deal with the race part. Not a whole lot of fun over here.”
“I’m seeing that. Your skyway scrotum massacre is starting to make a lot more sense.”
I scowl at Jace.
“Yeah, because god forbid you just took my word for it. Thanks. You should let Kiro know about your revelation the next time you see him.”
Jase backs up a bit.
“Duly noted. Sorry. Maybe she kept it in a different drawer?”
“Might have. I’ll take the right side, you take the left.”
I lower the rolltop back down, trapping the seething mass of rats once more, and pull open a small wooden drawer lower on the desk, revealing shining keys resting on red velvet. Passwords to sensitive information, most likely. I close the drawer and pull open the next. Small gems and coins wink up at me. I pick one up—a financial statement from her bank, deposits from GameCore.
“This looks promising. Brand always did have a thing for organization.”
Jase joins me, the view from his glasses showing him staring at the same drawer. Jewels and coins dart through the air, his digital hands lightning quick.
“Okay, let’s see what we have… got it. A no-strings sponsorship offer from a Golgbank subsidiary, giving her the hood in exchange for consideration on her viewstream. Comes across as big fans—these guys did their research.”
“Fuck. She wouldn’t have had any reason to suspect anything. I get offers like that all the time.”
“Check your messages.”
“One sec.”
I tap out of Brand’s portal and bring up my own, grabbing the battered toy cat to access my private messages.
“Looking… There. Fucking hell, they sent me one too, about two weeks ago; same company and everything. Must have been dumb luck that I didn’t read it, I usually put sponsorship stuff off until the beginning of each month.” I notice something on the address line and curse, my heart sinking.
“What is it?” Jase asks.
“Wind and Slend’s portals are in the recipient line also. They sent it to all of us. Shit, I gotta tell them.”
A couple quick twitches and I’m pinging their avatars. C’mon, answer, you two. Slend’s goes to her portal, and I leave her a quick message warning about the haphoods. Wind’s continues to buzz, then her avatar shifts from a static representation to dynamic motion. I ping Jase to ride my feed.
“…Yeah, Ash?” Wind sounds like she’s breathing hard. “Now’s not the best time. COVER FIRE, SLEND. Unless you’re planning on joining us.”
“Are you with Slend right now?”
“Yeah—HAHA SUCK IT YOU LITTLE SHIT—we’re doing some peeveepee practice. Battlefield’s Call facet, two on ten survival mode. TELL YOUR MOM TO TEACH YOU HOW TO SHOOT STRAIGHT, YOU GOAT-FELLATING TAINT SNORTER. Other team’s not bad with tactics, but they can’t aim for crap. Lemme patch her in.”
Slend’s avatar reappears in my vision.
“Ash. Missed you. Busy.”
“Wind told me. Did either of you get a sponsor offer for a new model of haphood from Golgbank?”
“Yeah, just got the hood today, as a matter of fact. Putting it through the paces now. This thing is amazing, Ash. The fidelity is—DO YOU JACK IT WITH THOSE TREMBLING HANDS, DICKFINGERS?—unbelievable.”
“Good gear,” Slend chimes in laconically.
“Shit. How long have you been wearing them?”
“Uhh, maybe two hours so far? We were gonna work on some psych-sec training in Freudia after we finish killing these TRASHFIRE BABOON BABIES. Shouldn’t take more than another fifteen minutes, tops. Why?”
“I need you two to log out of the Game, right now, and get those hoods off.”
“Whaaaat? Ash, we’re in the middle of a match. This’ll hit—GO BACK TO CANDYLAND, YOU CHODES—our ladder standing if we bail.”
“Wind, I need you to listen. Those hoods are dangerous. We already clinched. The ladder isn’t important right n—”