The Murder Prophet Read online

  This time Lemur didn't look anything like Aleshu Coro, for which I was thankful. Coro and LemurCandy seemed to have completely different personalities, and I would have found it difficult to merge the two in my mind now. Honestly, I hadn't taken much of a shine to the real Coro, and somehow his looks had lost some of their attractiveness, too.

  This was an avatar I'd seen Lemur wear before, but not as often as the Coro. Now he had short brown hair with just a hint of curl where it fell over his forehead, and an average build, not as muscled as the other one. When he turned to greet me, though, I realized with a shock that the eyes were the same. Green and somehow knowing. I shook that thought aside. This was a world made of pixels and projections, no matter how sensitive the faceskin you used to run your avatar. There was nothing about this or any avatar that could reflect what LemurCandy was really like, and I'd be better off if I got that fact through my thick head.

  he typed, grinning as usual.

  I replied with a smirk.

  He had the grace to look sheepish.

  I'd seen his reaction when I'd asked for information on the name.

  His avatar looked away. The words appeared more slowly than usual, as if he was confessing something reluctantly.

  I almost choked, since I'd read—and taken to heart—the same advice. But I just said This new avatar might not have the style of Coro's, but since I'd cooled on Coro, it was true.

  His avatar looked pleased.

  Dance music started up in the background, and I muted it. My annoyance tolerance seemed to be at its limit for the day.

  I asked,

  He shook his head.

  Since we were standing at the bar, I had my avatar order a drink, a Mystic Summer, for verisimilitude. Sangria and lemon juice with a shot of aratalel. I honestly don't know how people got along without aratalel before the advent of magic. I knew as soon as I ordered it that I shouldn't have, since it made me want the real thing. Oh, well, maybe I could convince Kiku to go out for drinks after work tomorrow.

  I told LemurCandy.

  LemurCandy's eyebrows went up, which was the least I would have expected. Secretly, I had some sympathy with Glaive's initial opinion, that it was a completely lost cause, but I hadn't wanted to give him the satisfaction of saying so at the meeting. And with Anna and Saga set on it, there wasn't much point in arguing. I wondered what LemurCandy would think of the idea.

  I waited while he considered. Then he grinned.

  I asked, sipping my drink. My brain really wanted to taste it, but I just couldn't fool my taste buds into thinking it was real.

 

  I blinked. LemurCandy had never invited me along on any of his information-gathering forays before. I asked, he investigated, reported to me, and I relayed the data back to the office. That was the drill.

  I protested, although actually the idea sounded exciting. Maybe I needed to do something different to shake off this funk. Maybe I just wanted to hang out with Lemur as long as I could.

  he assured me.

  I shrugged, not wanting to appear too eager.

  He laughed. His avatar looked mine up and down.

  I retorted.

  He stuck out his tongue at me and then his avatar spent the next few minutes arranging peanuts on the bar in silence. I knew that was because Lemur was busy in real life at his computer doing whatever technological "magic" he had to perform to join up our protocols, but it was a little disconcerting anyway. I'd have been happier if he'd just pulled the avatar and left me alone at the bar. I could have talked politics with Einstein-guy for that long.

  I did slip off the faceskin long enough to wash down a couple of Maginox® like he'd suggested. Two doses in one day meant I'd crash hard tonight, but I wasn't going to let this opportunity slip away, even if I had no idea what I might need magic for. Just in case, he'd said. But just in case of what?

  When LemurCandy's avatar came back to life, he asked,

  I didn't even really understand what he meant by that.

  he said, and reached out and took my avatar's hand. I was about to say okay when the Netz exploded inside my head.

  The mind virtual, the bar, Einstein-guy, LemurCandy's avatar and my drink all disappeared in—well, I was going to say in the blink of an eye, but I didn't have time to blink. It was there, and then it was gone, and I felt like I'd fallen into a black hole. Images flashed through my vision at such speed that I felt blinded. The physical me at my desk reflexively put a hand up to the faceskin to pull it off, but I stopped myself in time. I desperately didn't want to mess up the first time LemurCandy had invited me along on something.

  My avatar still clutched LemurCandy's hand, but that's one of the things you get used to pretty quick in virtuals—the odd melding of self and avatar, so that it's perfectly normal after a while to think of yourself as having four hands or two faces. I satisfied myself with putting my real hand on my real cheek. It felt like I had to hold the faceskin in place or it would be whipped away by the speed at which we were moving.

  Virtually, of course. I reminded myself that I was actually sitting at my desk at home, in front of the computer. But it sure didn't feel like that.

  After a moment the things flying past my vision clarified into pathways, variously colored blue, yellow, green, pink, orange—I wasn't sure that there was a finite number of variations. They weren't the wire-frame tunnels used in early attempts to visualize the Netz. It was more like being inside a glowing, 3-D subway route map.

  LemurCandy veered left into a blue one and I almost screamed. My avatar's hand clenched his. At least he wouldn't have heard me, but my avatar's expression mirroring mine via the faceskin would no doubt give it away. He would never let me live it down. I kept my lips firmly clamped shut.

  After that the turns came with blinding speed and frequency. I had the thought that I would never find my way back, which was stupid, because I wasn't actually going anywhere and all I had to do was take off the faceskin and I'd just be back in my apartment. But the sensation of movement was so real, that's how it felt.

  We finally emerged from the maze of intersecting paths back into a static virtual, the digital pathways morphed back into streets, and we fetched up outside a huge building. It stood many storeys high, its colonnaded facade styled to look like it had endured decades of use. Wide stone steps led up to double glass doors. I realized that LemurCandy was smiling at me and I took a deep breath.

  He ran up the virtual stone steps of the building and I followed a little more slowly, tryin
g to calm my pounding heart.

  Inside, instead of books, workstation terminals lined the walls, although they floated in space, not attached to anything. The walls themselves were a multiplicity of screens, and many avatars stood at terminals using them to look up information and read what displayed on the screen near their terminal. Lemur crossed to one and began pecking at the keys.

  I asked.

  he said.

 

  He shook his head, still typing. he said,

  I frowned. It wasn't exactly an explanation.

  He glanced at me and grinned. This new avatar had a pretty nice smile.

  I looked around the room idly at the other users, hiding my disappointment. Had he brought me along just to show off? For personal reasons, or so that I'd report back to Anna and Saga how dedicated and talented he was?

  he amended.

  Not wanting to look childish, I said,

  He pulled one of the free-floating terminals over next to his and showed me how to tap into the data stream. Since he was searching the Murder Prophet refs, I typed in Aleshu Coro's name.

  It was faster. I guess the difference was that I wasn't reading things physically off the screen at my computer, I was actually getting the data directly through the faceskin and synth glove interface—somehow. I felt deeper inside the Netz than I'd ever been, like I'd tapped into some dense inner current of the data stream. Almost a trance, a dream-state, where time moves differently, or is irrelevant. It felt sneaky, too. I liked that. I sorted through a lot of Aleshu Coro's life in an amazingly short time.

  I still didn't see any reason why someone would want to kill him. Whatever motive existed, no Netz data seemed to point to it.

  LemurCandy said.

  I asked.

 

  I had no idea what a tracer was or where we had to go to check on it, but I'd said I was along for the ride and I wasn't ready to go home yet.

  We left the virtual building and LemurCandy took my avatar's hand again when we reached the "street" outside. He did something, and then without warning we were back in the labyrinth of flashing pathways, and my main concerns were holding tight to LemurCandy's hand and trying not to get a headache. I felt certain if I did, it would be a real one, not the virtual kind.

  This time we settled in front of an apartment building. It was nice, virtually constructed of light-colored bricks and landscaped in a minimal way with a few small trees and shrubs, and gravel to keep the virtual weeds down. I'd had no idea that places like this existed in the Netz, that people took the time to craft actual cities for their interactive "rooms" to exist in. I'd heard of games that did this, sure, but this didn't feel like a game. I thought I might have a better understanding now of why some people spent so much time on the Netz. It wasn't just part of the real world; it had become a whole world of its own.

  I said as much to LemurCandy as we walked up a few flights of stairs inside the building. he explained.

  Most of what he'd just said didn't even make sense to me. My ignorance was embarrassing. How could I have missed all this? I looked around the hallway we'd reached. It was long and narrow, carpeted in swirls of blue and green and yellow. Light spilled up and down the walls from conical sconces, and doors waited at even intervals. It looked like a nice place to live. I suspected most of the apartments looked nicer inside than mine did in the real world.

  We stopped at the last door on the left. Bright, blue-tinged light leaked out underneath the door. LemurCandy's avatar still held my hand, but he put his other one up against the door and pressed it there for a moment. When it opened I realized why the light coming from underneath it was so bright. The entire inside of the room beyond was filled with computer screens.

  Computer screens, and one avatar. I could just discern the outline back-lit by the screens as Lemur dragged me over to be introduced.

  I wanted to protest, since that wasn't exactly my real username, but honestly I couldn't speak. FallenElfGeek really did look like an elf, all pointy ears and long intricately braided hair and soulful eyes. He also looked like a geek, wearing a black t-shirt that said <1nT3nZ3 G33K> in bright green letters, in case there were any doubt. His elf-like persona extended to the expression of thoughtful composure on his face.

  But he sort of lit up when Lemur introduced me and he just said and rather surprisingly hugged my avatar.

  I smiled and hugged him back, because I had no idea what else to do.

  LemurCandy and FallenElfGeek quickly fell into a very technical conversation. I zoned out purely for the preservation of my mental health. I gathered that FEG had been helping Lemur try to trace the origin of the Murder Prophet messages, but it involved a convoluted system of backtracking, looping, and aliasing. Whatever that meant. It seemed to mean that it was hard to track. That much, I got.

  Then FallenElfGeek proffered faceskins for us and put one on himself. I made my avatar take one and chose the "wear" command to put it on. At this point, what else could I do? I was in my apartment, attached via faceskin to my computer, and interacting over the Netz via an avatar, who was now putting on a virtual faceskin to interact with—I didn't know what. Some even deeper part of the Netz system? I hadn't even known about the kinds of places LemurCandy had already taken me tonight. But I wasn't about to back out now.

  We put on the faceskins and LemurCandy told me,

  I said,

  He laughed. He must have thought I was making a joke.

  Then we became completely incorporeal.

  Of course, we were already completely incorporeal in the virtual, because our bodies were back at home. Now we became...I don't know. Data in its purest digital form, I guess. There was no longer any semblance of reality or nods to creating surroundings that mimicked, even in a superficial way, the real world. There was only data—I sensed rather than saw the presence of the data packets representing LemurCandy and FEG.

  Even though I no longer had a virtual hand, it seemed like LemurCandy squeezed it encouragingly, then let go. The data packet that was LemurCandy moved away from us. I wondered briefly where he was going, but was too intrigued by what surrounded us to worry about it.

  On all sides ran streams of numbers, digital code that somehow, through the faceskin, made sense to me. They were maps. They were instructions. They were pictures. They were statements of fact.

  And some of them were lies.

  My magic sensed it without conscious effort from me. I was glad I had taken the Maginox®. I said, as a string of numbers streamed past me. It was as if the mental intention of the originator had imprinted itself on the command, tainting it with a visible aura of deception.

  The stream I'd just indicated glowed red. FallenElfGeek said, somewhere inside my head.

  I studied the numbers carefully n
ow. Some emanated a stronger sense of deception than others. Those I picked out easily. In others, it seemed more removed, as if maybe they had simply iterated from a false one, not been directly created themselves by someone with misleading intentions. I became completely caught up in sorting and classifying them, entranced by what my magic could reveal.

  Finally FallenElfGeek said that was probably enough, and when we took off our secondary faceskins, the streaming numbers winked out and we were back in FEG's monitor-lined virtual living room. FEG regarded one of the screens with a look of satisfaction. "That's taken care of a lot of garbage," he said.

  "What kind of garbage?" I didn't even really understand what I'd been doing, and I didn't see LemurCandy anywhere. I wondered where he had gone.

  "Well, all those things you tagged were backtracks, aliases—all kinds of deceptive message path manipulations."

  Before I could ask what that meant, Lemur returned from another room in the apartment and asked, "How'd it go?"

  "She was netzune!" FEG said, which I took to mean something good. LemurCandy clapped him on the shoulder, and we said our goodbyes. FEG promised to do some more detective work with this new information, and get back to LemurCandy in the morning.

  Lemur and I walked down the stairs and out of the building slowly. He had taken hold of my avatar's hand again and I was trying to wrap my head around what had just happened.

  I said, as we stood outside the building. It was full dark now, programmed to simulate the physical world, and streetlights glowed on standards high above our heads. Stars twinkled in the distance. Most of the buildings around us had lights in their windows. An avatar in medieval garb flew past, low over our heads, and settled on the sidewalk in front of a building a little further down the street. LemurCandy didn't even look up, so I assumed this was an ordinary occurrence.

  Lemur nodded.