Twist: Exactly. So, let’s take a peek inside.
Twist dropped down to land on the roof, and Chas did the same. He zoomed in on the side of the building and swivelled to swing his POV beyond the wall and into the club. Immediately he found himself looking into a large, high-ceilinged room, a thick patterned green carpet overlaid with Persian and Chinese rugs. Several beds, a sofa, and a profusion of sex poseballs were scattered around the room. Erotic paintings lined the walls, and in the centre of the room stood a large maroon circle with eight cushions around its edge. Eight naked Club Echangiste members, four men, four women, sat around a green bottle in the centre of the circle. With each spin of the bottle a new couple was paired off, and they got up and disappeared through a doorway to another room.
Chas carefully manipulated his POV to take him through to what was evidently the ballroom described in the blurb. It, too, was luxuriously carpeted. Flames flickered in an open fire, and there was the usual proliferation of poseballs, some of which were occupied by swingers grinding and grunting their way through various sex acts. Along one wall were teleporters to the other club rooms. The Traditional Suite, the Asian Suite, the Drive-In Theater, the Holodeck. He saw that from the inside all the windows were clear and realised that they might have been seen flying past. But everyone seemed too preoccupied to have noticed. He checked his radar and went into IM to talk to Twist.
Chas: Well, there’s no sign of Icy or Crom in here.
Twist: There are more boxes above us. Let’s go up.
Chas took his POV back outside and craned to look above them. He could see another, smaller building, about a hundred metres further up. Twist took off, and Chas soared after him. Again, they landed on the roof, and swivelled to peek inside. A black couple on an enormous bed were indulging in an oral sex act. Chas could hear the chatter of keyboards. So they were talking to one another, although they were too far away for the text of their conversation to register.
Twist: Hahahaha. Didn’t her mother teach her it was rude to speak with her mouth full?
But Chas was embarrassed to be spying on people’s privacy like this.
Chas: Come on, let’s check out the other rooms.
Twist: You go on, I’ll catch you up. I’m enjoying the view from here.
Chas hesitated a moment. Twist was behaving very strangely. But then he pinned his arms to his side and soared upwards again, past another sex room and the holodeck, checking his radar as he flew. There were plenty of names appearing on it. But none of them was Icy Fizzle or Crompton Nightly. Finally, he arrived at the drive-in theatre, which was open to the skies and bounded by a low wall. There were two cinema screens and a red 1950s automobile. The place was deserted. The sun had sunk low on the far horizon, and night was falling fast.
Chas landed beside the car and looked around. There was nothing showing on either screen. He clicked on one, and a menu appeared, offering him a choice of half a dozen porn movies. He closed it again, wondering what drew people to a place like this. People’s second lives seemed dominated by sexual obsession. Club Echangiste was the epitome of it. And then it struck him that, really, people’s first lives were dominated by sex, too, but that here in the virtual world, there were fewer complications and no danger of disease. The worst that could happen was that you might pick up a computer virus.
While he waited for Twist, he opened up the Landmark folder in his Inventory, to start sorting his LMs into rational groupings — all the links that Doobie had given him to places he might one day explore. And he thought about how he and Doobs had very nearly consummated their relationship earlier before being subjected to coitus interruptus at the hands of two giant geckos. It was a thought that brought a smile to his face, in spite of everything.
He saw Twist appear on his radar, but no sign of him arriving at the drive-in. He turned through 360 degrees but still couldn’t see him. For the first time, he felt a strange chill of apprehension. Something was wrong. He had felt uncomfortable ever since Twist had TPed into the office.
Twist: I’m sorry, Chas. Didn’t really mean it to end this way.
He turned around to find Twist standing behind him. How was it possible for an avatar to look evil? But there was something very menacing in Twist’s proximity, a strange tilt of the head that caused his eyes to look up at him, narrowed and laden with threat.
Chas: What are you talking about, Twist?
Twist: You’re too damned clever for your own good, Michael.
Twist made a swift movement, and there was gun in his hand. A large, silver revolver, beautifully engraved. Every fibre of Chas’ conscious mind told him that he was looking down the barrel of the Super Gun. And yet he still found it impossible to believe.
Chas: For Christ’s sake, Janey! What are you doing?
Twist: I’m afraid you serve no useful further purpose Chas. Time to die.
Chas knew he had a split second while Twist went into Mouselook to fire. He glanced at his open Inventory and the LMs that Doobie had given him. He double-clicked fast on the first one his mouse landed on and teleported out of the drive-in at the very moment Twist pulled the trigger. He heard the gunshot following him like an echo, but he was gone, intact, and rezzing suddenly into a strange new world.
Chapter Thirty-Two
He was on some kind of asteroid. It was dark, the skies filled with a million coloured stars, some of which streaked across his screen. Planets hung in the mist, green and molten amber, blue and red. Huge rocks tumbled through the night in slow motion. And slowly, as this bizarre world rezzed around him, he began to see people. Lots of them. His radar showed a long list of names. This was a busy place.
Blue chairs floated through the sky, avatars comfortably seated for a ride through the asteroid belt. Behind him was a blue globe, liquid patterns constantly changing, and sliding like oil over its shiny, smooth surface.
Yet more avatars lounged on cushions around a central circle, and beyond a collection of floating boulders that created a bridge to a neighbouring rock, citizens practised slow-motion tai-chi in perfect synchronisation.
He saw Twist’s name appear on his radar and turned as his pursuer began to rez, still grey, and almost certainly still blind. Chas would have a few seconds before Twist would see him.
He started running. Straight across the floating rock bridge and into the serried ranks of the tai-chi practitioners. Almost before his eyes, a girl called Phacelia Jolles burst apart in an explosion of blood and flesh, an enormous hole torn through her middle. The avatar fell dead, blood oozing fast all around her. Chas turned to see Twist in pursuit, gun raised, ready to shoot again.
He swerved off to the right and ran across the smooth rock surface of the asteroid. Another AV, Thadeus Horchier, spun away, spraying blood through the sky. The report of the gun came almost immediately afterwards. Chas kept running, bumping and crashing his way through the crowds. He saw text appearing. Curses and cries of abuse.
He was almost at the end of the asteroid now. Nothing beyond it but empty space and a dark planet hanging ominously in the night. A young couple stood by two poseballs. Orbital Kiss F and Orbital Kiss M. The young man, Will Stacy, clicked on the M ball and vanished. Before the girl had a chance to click on the F ball, Chas stepped in and beat her to it.