It made Rick anxious that he had to come back without Kristina-Anne. Seeing her again was like reopening a wound that, while it hadn’t healed, also hadn’t hurt as badly as the night she left.
Now he felt her absence all the more.
He’d lingered at the restaurant and taken longer than he needed to eat, but no matter how hard he tried to stretch the minutes, the time came when he simply had to leave. Had he only imagined she’d also been reluctant to have him go?
The train ride seemed rougher on the way back, though it made no sense. The softer seats of the long-distance train didn’t seem as soft as they had on the way up.
He had two days to fill before the ranked match. However he filled it, he’d have to not drink as much to get him through. Alex couldn’t help him, and though he considered Ditto a friend, the AI bot didn’t have the emotional equipment to sustain the kind of friendship that could get a man through a hard time with his wife.
He’d been single-minded in his focus, and he’d taken for granted that his wife would be there simply because he loved her.
When he got home, it was dark again. Opening the door into the darkness made him feel alien in his own home. He’d eaten at a noodle shop between the long-distance train and the L.A. commuter line. He walked to the refrigerator and pulled out a caffeine free soda instead of a beer. Though the fights in Ruckus Online weren’t the same as the true fights, he still needed sleep. He needed to take care of himself. For him and for Kristina.
Too tired to shower, he flopped into bed and sleep came quickly.
**************************
After getting up late, he headed to the SR array shop and spent the afternoon practicing in open matches. Though he’d worried he’d run into R3D_Button and it would be awkward, that never happened.
Rick didn’t place high in most of the matches, but he wasn’t there to win. He was there to practice his Ga Family Style stance and skills, as well as to get better with his initial stats and figure out where to boost them and where not to, especially in regards to High Jump Air Dash. The biggest discovery he made was that he could link High Jump Air Dash to many other moves without becoming vulnerable when he used Jammin’ to link it to the end of the air dash.
Dan had been willing to give him everything—a luxury apartment with a state-of-the-art SR array near Dokutan headquarters in NorCal, better pay than Hector ever had, insurance for himself and his wife. Most importantly, he and Dokutan would privately secure the eggs with no strings attached and prevent Hector from retaliating, though Dan couldn’t guarantee Hector’s compliance, but with the cheating data, Dokutan had enough legal leverage to put Hector, and more importantly, anyone else using the cheats, in prison for quite a while.
But Rick had refused to give the cheating info straight away, as Dan had said it wouldn’t be enough to get Rick everything he needed. Rick also needed to place first of one-hundred. Dan gave off the strong implication that the biological material and most of the dealings with Hector would be under the table, but to employ Rick as a fighter for Dokutan, he had to perform. The larger shareholders in the company kept tabs on their fighters, and giving Rick the apartment, the insurance package, and the wages necessary to keep the eggs safe would be suspicious otherwise.
He’d gone through the offers from outside teams over and over, looking for an alternative in case he couldn’t place, but none of them could give him everything. The shadier groups might have been able to handle Hector, but not permanently, and they couldn’t provide safe accommodations or a wage that would secure his and Kristina’s future.
Dan and Dokutan were Rick’s best hope. He practiced until the shop closed at midnight and pre-reserved an array for tomorrow. He’d put in a full day again tomorrow.
**************************
The practice had paid off; he was getting better at linking skills and adapting to whatever the game offered him. The most peril always lay with the first two or three fights, though running across a Wild One early on had ended his round before it got going more than once.
For a change, he’d rested well and wasn’t hung over before a ranked match. He was well fed, too, though he missed his wife’s cooking. He missed his wife’s everything.
For once, the train ride to the SR shop didn’t give him butterflies. He’d done the work. He’d studied for the test.
A block away from the shop was when it became clear something was wrong. The shop had a small crowd outside. When he got within half a block, the broken glass on the sidewalk came into view.
Fuck. He strode to the edge of the crowd, keeping away from the cops talking to a well-dressed man outside the door.
He caught the attention of a young woman who was also watching the hubbub. “What’s going on?”
“Break in, looks like.”
Rick tried not to worry. He’d left early. Maybe they’d have it up and running.
A man ran up to the young woman. “There’s been a lot of damage, I guess. Gonna be closed for a while.”
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Rick panicked, and the look appeared to be reflected in the eyes of the young woman. Is she a fellow competitor?
He wanted to kick himself. All that prep, but he hadn’t thought to search a backup? He checked his phone. He had twenty minutes to find and secure a spot.
Ditto? Are you there? He waited, but the woman gave him a strange look. Rick tried to appear less urgent.
I’m here.
The normal shop where I’ve been plugging in has been vandalized. I don’t know if it’s Hector or just bad luck, but I didn’t plan ahead for this. You know where the nearest SR array might be?
I don’t have access to a citizen’s map, Ditto said.
Shit. I need to find a place to plug in.
Ditto said, I have a heat map of login locations. Checking for concentrated logins.
Rick tried not to look anxious as he monitored the young woman and the man. The’d lowered their voices, and cast furtive glances as they spoke, as if they were afraid of being overheard.
Ditto’s voice in his head punctured the tension. There’s a cluster half a mile away. Northeast.
Rick glanced around. Which way is northeast?
Turn thirty-seven degrees to your right. It’s approximately half a mile in that direction, Ditto said.
Rick turned and frowned. Across the street, the corner of a building greeted him. I can’t go straight in that direction.
Right, Ditto said. You’ll have to navigate around—
“Fuck this,” Rick said aloud. He held his phone to his mouth. “Where’s the nearest simulated reality array shop?”
The young couple perked up when they heard him, confirming Rick’s suspicions. In a panic, he turned off the phone’s speaker. A map appeared on his phone, but there was no shop. Shit. Ditto, there isn’t a shop listed. How much time do I have?
You have approximately fourteen minutes. The only cluster of arrays that meet specification for Ruckus Online are those about which I’ve already informed you.
Rick grunted. From a few feet away, the couple studied him. Perhaps they had the same problem he did. He sighed; he couldn’t stop them from following him, or for looking for the shop themselves. In a nonchalant way, he crossed the street in the direction Ditto had previously indicated.
The couple followed him, though whenever Rick glanced back at them, they weren’t looking at him. Definitely following.
As soon as he got to the corner, he took a slight left and walked up that side of the street. When he got to the end of the building, he zig-zagged back to the right around the corner and ran, urgent to get distance between himself and the couple tailing him.
He glanced back. They hadn’t arrived. He sprinted. When he looked back again, they’d seen him and had begun running as well.
Where next? he asked.
I don’t have detailed maps, Ditto said. I’m not allowed that sort of access to your internet.
Great. Rick ran to the end of the block, then zagged back left around the corner, determined to get out of the line of sight of his pursuers.
He should have paid better attention to where he was going, as the street dead-ended half a block up. When he looked back, the young couple stopped, appearing to take in his situation. Rick searched for away forward that wouldn’t cause him to lose his lead by going back.
To his right, there was a small gap between buildings. Junk had been piled up in the gap, but it might let him through, though there was no way to tell whether there was another dead end on the other side.
How much time do I have? he asked.
Nine minutes.
Nine minutes? He’d have to take a risk, as running back to the end of the block might delay him too long. He’d still have to pay for entry and get plugged in. Pushing the anxiety away, he headed for the gap.
He tried to climb quickly, but when he got cut by an exposed screw, he slowed down and picked a more considered path through the pile of old boards, toys, bicycles and their parts, and not one, but two dilapidated mini refrigerators someone had dumped.
He glanced back, and though they tried to look casual, the young couple had caught up to him and now cast glances through the gap. The woman had a mortified look on her face, and after a couple seconds, pulled her partner away, likely to find some other way around.
The end of the gap opened into a yard with a tall fence that appeared to be shared with several apartments. Wooden steps led to a series of decks with railings. Rick ran for the nearest one, climbed to the first deck, and ignored the startled look on a woman’s face when she spied him through her window.
He jumped, landed without injury, and shot to the other end of the apartment building, grateful to find an open path to the street.
How long? he asked.
Five minutes.
Rick took a deep breath. Which way?
Turn twenty-three degrees right. It’s four-hundred yards away in a straight line.
He guessed at the direction and ran, coming to the corner of a building, rounding it, then sprinting across the next street.
He bolted across the parking lot of a convenience store, then across another street before Ditto’s voice was in his head again.
Fifty feet, slightly left.
Rick squinted and looked for anything that might be an SR array shop. I don’t see a shop.
There’s a cluster fifty feet away.
Rick turned in a circle. Something about the area seemed familiar. He walked in the direction Ditto indicated, and that’s when it struck him. He’d run a couple deliveries here! The apartment complex ahead—run down, with two heavyset men standing outside who looked uninterested in him—had received three rush jobs early in his first days as a courier. He remembered it because he’d thought he’d gotten lost the first time he made the run. The feeling of déjà vu was eery as he stepped closer to the building.
The two men closed ranks and eyed him suspiciously. “You lost?” one of them said.
“Looking for an SR array,” Rick said.
Three minutes. Ditto’s voice was in his head.
Rick smiled.
“You sure you’re in the right place?”
“I’ve got the money.” A flash of inspiration lit up in his mind. “Hector sent me.”
That put the men at ease, and they parted to let him enter. “You don’t look the type, but…”
Rick stepped through the door and found everything much the way it had been nearly a year ago. The same dark-haired man sat at a desk in a makeshift lobby that looked like it had been carved away from what had once been a first-floor apartment.
The man nodded and Rick nodded back. “This is my first time, so…”
“You look familiar,” the man said.
“I work for Hector. Off today. He let me in on what this place actually does and I wanted to give it a try.” He’d gambled with the response. Judging by how guarded everyone was and that the place had no advertising, Rick figured it must be an SR array shop that offered access to banned content—the modern equivalent to a 1920s speakeasy.
“Thousand dollars. No refunds.”
Rick nodded, but the cost shocked him. What the hell sort of stuff are they simulating here? “Do I have to stick with the programs you have set up?”
The dark-haired man narrowed his eyes. “The only deep-web stuff you can use is our stuff. Otherwise, do what you want, though we scratch most itches.”
Two minutes, Ditto said.
“Okay.” Rick approached a terminal and used his fingerprint to transfer the money.
The man gave him a key card. “Second door on your left.”
Rick started for the room, but a commotion drew his attention. Outside, there was an argument. He heard a woman’s voice. Was it the couple who’d followed him? He nodded back toward the door. “That happen a lot?”
The man furrowed his brow and started for the entrance. Rick kept walking, anxious to plug in before he missed his chance.