I reach my destination, it is an apartment complex for VR addicts. There aren’t any signs that proclaim this, it isn’t advertised as such, but it is the truth. The focus on tiny, bare bones rooms, as well as the boasts about connection speeds gives it away.

The smell is something straight out of hell.

One of them steps out of their room as I walk past it. He is thin and pale, a pair of drone monitor’s coveralls hangs off of his ghoulish body. His kind only leaves VR when he absolutely needs to. He is a high functioning addict; he knows that he has to go to work so that he can pay the bills. He knows that is what he needs to do to get time in the virtual world, so the retch powers through the workday. I shake my head as he walks toward the elevator. My mind struggles with visions of a possible version of myself.

I reach room 205. I knock on the door. After a brief delay it opens. What at first appears to be a humanoid drone is standing in the doorway. But the fact that it wears fancy robes and has decorated its frame with engravings gives away the fact that it is a person. The torso is somewhat wide, not in a way that suggests fat, but more that it is stoutly built. It breathes heavily, as it needs much more oxygen than normal.

The face is minimalist, little more than a few optic systems and a small light positioned where the month would be. This light would turn on to indicate when it was was speaking. My eyes are always drawn to the two cylindrical mechanisms that act as sense organs; something about the way that they randomly move around is hypnotic.

“John, I haven’t seen you in a while,” it said I and not we, which always confused me.

The Being known as Aganok lives in the cheap little Délta Corp apartment that I rent to keep up appearances. Aganok can’t live anywhere, because it is an Untouchable, so it covers the rent for me in exchange for allowing it to stay there.

The place is claustrophobic, features nothing beyond the basic necessities. Aganok has done its best to make the place feel like a proper home. A shelf is completely filled with books, with a few extras stacked on a rather beat up looking end table.

I take a seat at the kitchen table, which has stuff piled on it so that it can no longer serve its original function. I default to the trusty tactic of telling a lie that is based on the truth, “I would come by more, but I have been deep into the grind.”

“I get you there. I have lifetimes of that shit running around in my mind,” it said my mind instead of minds, and again, I am confused.

“I finally got my debts paid off. Now I am aiming at getting to the point where I am financially stable.”

“That is a good goal to have. You took my advice and decided to wait on that other place?”

“Ya, as nice as that Charles Fauré place is, I can’t afford it right now.”

“I am glad to see that you are staying rational, a lot of people don’t.”

“People are crazy these days.”

“These days?”

“I guess you are right, people have always been fucked up.”

“To say the least. Take my advice, decadence is fun, but in the long run it isn’t very fulfilling.”

I laugh, “You are probably right, but that won’t stop me from trying!”

It returns my laugh by projecting one into my IC and asks what has brought me there.

“I’m looking for a girl,” with a willed thought the image of the young woman is sent from my IC to the main processor that links its brains, “I checked in her employer’s system and it said that she ran off with an Untouchable.

It projects the image of a face, livid and ready to brawl, “You are just going to turn her over to the company, why should I help you find her?”

I don’t know if telling it about Mr. Burke will make things worse, “She is in some kind of danger. She will be safe in The Archipelago.”

“She is a sex slave,” it says matter of factly.

“She made a decision to work there.”

“Does she owe them a debt?”

“Yes, but what does that matter? She could have picked a lower paying job. She made the decision to get herself into that position.”

“Sometimes you sicken me.”

“I don’t like it, but I accept it.”

“Why would you accept something so horrible?”

“Because, that is the world that we live in. There’s nothing that I can do to change that fact.”

“What about the Untouchables? Are you saying that my efforts to get us the right to use money are useless?”

“I don’t know, but I wish you luck,” I try to change the subject, “They sent a bounty hunter after her, registration number CX-1007.”

“He goes by Goëtia, his original name is unknown,” he pronounced it Go-sha, sending the correct spelling to my computer.

“Any idea what he looks like.”

“No. I can only find one post, in it, he is described as horrible, but it doesn’t elaborate. It was the last post that the person ever made.”

“So, he is good at what he does.”

“That, and I suspect that he is authorized to kill them, helps to set an example for the others.”

“So, you agree that we need to find her.”

“We have a nice arrangement, but you have nice arrangements with a lot of people. Why should I trust that you have her best interests at heart?”

I try not to act too frustrated, “You know me.”

“You don’t know a thing about me,” it counters, it wasn’t the first time that it accused me of being cold.

This is where my research pays off, “I know that there are six of you in there. Your name is derived from the first letter of the names of the people that form your consciousness. Two of you are very old, from the days when the United States was still a thing; one was a computer hacker and the other was a university professor who was bitter about how little that meant at the time. One was a soldier that served in the war against Mars. Another was his lover, a woman that was a drug addict and a lost soul.”

It just sits there listening. God only knows what the stack of brains that forms its shared consciousness are thinking.

“One of you is a transhumanist, the kind that is at odds with the church.”

It still sits there, breathing heavily with its mechanical lungs and not moving one bit. I decide to bring out the big guns.

“I’m not gonna lie, Professor Gerald Henderson. You made those times, the twenty teens, sound so amazing. ‘There was this overwhelming sense of doom. Everyone seemed to think that the end of civilization was fast approaching. Many dreaded it, some celebrated it. Every day seemed to bring a new massacre, every person seemed to be teetering on the edge of insanity. We were separated and driven against each other in ways that had long been thought obsolete. People donned strange clothing and fought in the streets while the police did nothing. In some circles basic science was rejected, in others the very idea of being a victim was demonized. And I watched the chaos, trying to figure out where it all went wrong.’”

It speaks, “The Church of the Ascended is in on this. They have a team looking for a girl that matches your target.”

My target, it makes it sound like I am hunting her. I guess that it is just being truthful. What does the Church have to do with this?

“So, will you help me?”

“I saw a girl like that the other day. She was with a guy, it stuck out to me because he isn’t into girls like that, he prefers tough ladies.”

“Okay, this is good. Can you give me his name?”

“Jack Mason.”

I automatically do a search and what I find shocks me, “He is a radical, he wants the Untouchables to revolt. He is suspected of being involved in several terror attacks.”

“He is dangerous. What does he want with her?”

“I don’t know. My government contact sent me after her. I can only imagine that they want to take her into protective custody.”

“Or eliminate her.”

“It is possible, but I think that this is the best chance that she has.”

“I don’t know where he lives. He exists on the edge of the Untouchable community, an outcast among outcasts.”

“The government is after him, that means that I can learn more.”

“How?”

“I know someone,” I say with a grin.