Charlotte, North Carolina

December 21, 2035

3:15 AM

Linear Azure threw the black hair of her robotic avatar over her shoulder and turned around to lean over the back of the brown leather couch. Azure was a stage name, since she had many years ago married a metalhead named Reginald Markov and had taken his name. Both of them had been longtime players of Absolute Conviction Online and, in fact, it was the thing that first brought them together. She’d fallen off the game like a lot of people and hadn’t been following it recently. It didn’t help that her contract as poster girl hadn’t been renewed. Ostensibly the reason was cost. The real reason was that the people behind the game, mostly wankers from the military industrial complex, didn’t really like her.

Her husband was fixing the two of them a drink—bourbon on the rocks for him, pure methanol for her. She could convert the methanol into power to recharge her batteries via a fuel cell she had in her core, but it also warmed her up and gave her primary cooling system (aka ‘breathing’) some additional moisture. It also did a few other things which were more psychological.

Ultimate systems really weren’t intended to be perfect. They were just built to emulate humans, a function Linear took seriously. She gave her husband a Cheshire-cat smile and took her drink off him. It wasn’t the first one she’d had that evening.

“Hey Rej,” she said, gesturing over her shoulder to her television which was tuned in to On Grid Today, “Isn’t this nostalgic? Europa and Sky are going for Vulcan again.”

Hurricane Sky was the Ultimate system known as Prism in the game. Europa was actually the woman’s real name, but she had been forced to change it in the Light World.

“Babe, nostalgic isn’t the word I’d use. You sure you don’t want to just hop on and play?” he said, and flopped down on the end. She nuzzled up against him and exhaled against his neck. The byproduct of the reaction was heat and hydrogen and oxygen, or in romantic terms hot breath.

“Maybe I do.” she said, and closed her eyes to offer up her lips. A particularly arresting line from the television put a temporary hold on this intimate scene, a word that drew their attention away by its mere sound.

“—relative space.” the brown-haired host said, “You’ve all heard this one before, but we’ve got an anonymous caller on the line who claims to be able to shed light on some things. We’re going to mask his voice and give him this animated little chipmunk avatar.”

The host was making fun of the guy, as one does to conspiracy theorists, but Linear and Rej didn’t really find it amusing.

“I’ll cut to the chase, because we might get shut down before long.” the caller said, in a kind of high pitched voice as his avatar cavorted around the host's desk, “I was there for all of it. Relspace is real and the second Pacific War was fought over its control and use; I know you know that, but your viewers might not.”

“I know that claim.” the host said, carefully, “I don’t see what it has to do with ACO.”

Linear could practically see the sweat forming on the host. It was fine to air conspiracies so long as you claimed not to believe them. That was ‘free speech.’ To say otherwise was ‘misinformation’ and, well, there was no place for such purveyors to go except digital perdition.

“It has everything to do with ACO. ACO is where relspace was first observed.“ the chipmunk caller said. “During the Racing Heart Incident.”

The trivial little razor controlling the animation of the thing caught onto the caller’s nervousness and made the creature hop around all agitated. It was a little cute. As for what the caller was saying, it was true. Linear and Rej exchanged a look which said: I’m not worried, yet.

“The viral clip with Azure?” the host said, “You’re putting me on here.”

“I’m not. Azure was military at the time, and an AI. She’s originally a military system. This is public knowledge. The incident wasn’t a viral clip, Rich, it was a military experiment. Relspace is the power to warp reality in specific ways—in that case, it was the game world. In others, it has been ours. I have seen things you wouldn’t believe. Here’s the thing: there appears to be no significant difference between worlds from the perspective of this system.”

The host got a good chuckle out of that. Linear and Rej exchanged another look: I’m worried, now.

“So you’re saying that it would be possible to influence this world from there.” he said, “Why haven’t you done it?”

“I didn’t know how. Titan figured it out. They need control of Wolf Volcano for this reason, which is why they’re going for it. It’s their Committee To Abolish Reality—”

The broadcast was suspended and replaced by a black screen which read: This Channel Has Been Suspended For Terms of Service Violations. Rej clinked down his glass of bourbon just as Linear’s phone began vibrating on the coffee table. She picked it up with her jointed hand. It was her sister, who ran a security firm and was just generally one of those elite spooks. Linear really didn’t like those guys. Except for this one.

“Chain,” she said, “Did you s—“

“Yes.” the British-accented woman on the other end said.

“But they d—“

“Don’t have a Pulse Drive. Linear, all Frames in ACO have a Pulse Drive.” Chain spat out, as if that were so obvious.

“But—“

“But those are fake. All Pulse Drives are fake! You seem a bit slow, are you drunk?”

Linear formed her lips into a line. Rej, who was close enough to hear Chain’s words, picked his bourbon back up and downed it in one go.

“This is dumb.” Linear said, “If you think there’s a danger just shut the servers down.”

There was a sigh from the other end, broken by a frustrated outburst.

“We did!”

“Oh man.” Linear said, pouty, “I wanted to play though.”

“Linear.” Chain said, “You’re drunk, so I’m going to speak as if to a child. We shut them down fifteen minutes ago. People are still online.”

“What? How? Shut down the internet.” Linear blurted out, desperately. Chain didn’t have that power offhand, but it was available to some who might be convinced. Chain sighed.

“They’re not connecting through the bloody internet.”

“T-the power grid.”

“Brilliant idea. Hadn’t thought of it. Ever heard of a laptop?”

“What do you want me to say, Chain? You’re the one on the inside here. It’s your circus.”

“Yes and, as always with all things relspace, I don’t know who I can trust, except you.”

“Because I’m your sister!” Linear said, excited.

“Fine.” Chain said, “Let’s go with that.”

“You don’t sound very sincere…”

“Sod off.”

“Sod off, sister.”

A long pause followed this one.

“Put Rej on.” Chain demanded. Linear sheepishly handed off the phone.

“Reginald Markov, CEO Of Psychedelics, speaking.” he said. He was forced to hold the phone away from his ear when it started emitting a loud stream of extremely British vulgarities. He brought it back only when it died down.

“Sober up, both of you. I need you to do something for me.”