@Expectations Page 12

  It’s what Tom loves about electronic life. There is an absolute quality to it, a purity that is elegant and endlessly seductive. There is nothing in programming that can’t be solved through trial and error. In time. Try this, try that, beat your head against the wall because no matter how complex the question, there is an answer. Solutions are complete and absolute. Rewarding. Solve it once and you can always solve it.

  Gadfly, intellectual batterer, power freak, practical joker: Reverdy is all these things. On StElene, he signifies. He can be anything he wants. This is his home. Here, he is secure. And outside this world? Chaos waits; it makes him afraid.

  To survive your life in the world, first you must secure your world.

  If you can’t live alone, you must have at least one room in the place where you live that you can be alone in, no incursions, nothing to threaten your arrangements or jeopardize your perfect design. It is important to secure it against intruders. Cover all the exits. Leave nothing unprovided for and no next steps unplanned. Position yourself in the corner so your adversaries will always have to face you. This way no one can whisper into your ear unseen and nobody can ever, ever come up on you from behind. In the world, a dead end waits at every turning.

  Listen. On StElene, there is no entrance without its exit. In the exquisitely precise world of computer programming, there is no problem without its solution. If only he could disappear into it and never come out again.

  Here, he has options. Options: he loves the game!

  By the same token, he hates spoilers. He particularly hates clumsy, flat-footed newcomers who log on to StElene like Huns swooping down on a palace, bring on the maidens. For them, Reverdy’s devised a second, secret identity. He becomes Precious, a glamour pot who looks like a good prospect for a hasty virtual roll in the hay. Slinky Precious comes on strong in fishnet stockings and a lowcut black dress, and when she intercepts a heavy-handed sex troller she preens and flirts, the works. She targets sex-trollers, those horny, anonymous male Guests who log on with sweaty hands because they’ve mistaken StElene for a virtual bordello. They think they can do anything here because they’ve invisible. Assuming that every woman in the place is panting for it, they’re heavy-handed as horny eighth graders, bent on typing sticky-fingered porn to some like-minded woman who will be equally thrilled. Disguised as Precious, Reverdy targets intruders who hit on the regulars. Their pickup lines range from clumsy to disgusting and Reverdy hates them for it because, in an odd way, it cheapens his own romances.

  When he spots a mark he has to move fast, or Velvet will snag the sex-starved typist and lure him into her quarters, the Velvet Underground, before sultry Precious can ask, “Do you come here often?”

  It’s illegal to run two characters on StElene, but Reverdy does it. Defying corporation guidelines is half the thrill, and the rest is vigilante justice. Unless the rest is getting away with it.

  As Precious, he talks the talk, drawing the predator away from his intended prey, who usually grins and pages, “Thanks.” Laughing at his keyboard, Tom Dearden has Precious lead this Casanova wannabe down to the Lovers’ Glen. And when the fool is deep into what he’s convinced is ultimate virtual passion, gasping and vulnerable, Precious turns into Benjy, a huge hairy lumberjack with tattooed biceps, cauliflower face, the works. Snagged in midair, the ersatz Casanova is horrified to read:

  CRACK! Just when you least expect it, Precious turns into BENJY. Benjy is a lumberjack in combat boots with CURLY BLACK HAIR growing down his arms and he is about to beat the crap out of you. Before he tells the FBI you’re a pedophile corrupting kids by posting porno on the net.

  Benjy growls, “So, you think you can come in here and say ‘Hi, you don’t know me but let’s fuck. And our women will be thrilled.’” His voice gets huge. “Well, YOU MADE A BIG MISTAKE.” Then Benjy adds, to put the fear of God into his mark, “I happen to be the onsite man for the FBI.” And muscle-bound Benjy at The Lovers’ Glen and Reverdy at his keyboard in rural Alaska cackle happily because whoever he is, the fool who dropped into StElene expecting cheap sex is humiliated and terrified. The would-be virtual Casanova disconnects fast. He won’t try that again.

  Yes, Reverdy is courting trouble and he knows it. The problem with Edens, of course, is that they are filled with people, and by nature, people have a way of messing up. Even Reverdy, who knows every Eden has its rules. Precious is only one of the secrets he is sitting on.

  He has a secret plan. He dreams of pirating StElene out of the clutches of Suntum International and making it perfect. In fact, without the Directors’ knowing it, he’s downloaded the database and stored it on his own machine. He would like to demolish StElene and move everybody into one of the highspeed multi-gigabyte machines that he builds and maintains in his home office the way a rich man fills his stables with glossy, top of the line sports cars. Freed from fascist corporate constraints, which demand that everything march in order, his version of StElene can indeed become the ideal society. He’s sure of it.

  But if Reverdy leaves StElene, can he take enough players with him to make it fly? Like a retreating army, he wants to scorch and burn what he leaves behind so nobody at Suntum can use it ever again. Can he hack into the database and write a bit of code that will take the Directors and their system down for good? He’s halfway done. Before he finishes, he has to make sure his friends are in place and except for Zan and Lark, he’s not certain of his friends. If word leaks out before he’s done he’ll be @erased from StElene. He could end up alone in space—and here and in the other kingdom, Tom Dearden is terrified of dying alone.

  He has to figure it out! He has things to do, he thinks, putting Precious to bed and logging back on as Reverdy, people to see. Azeath, he thinks for no real reason except that even in Eden, a man is tempted to shoot himself in the foot. @find az he types. Grins. Bingo.

  @fourteen

  AZEATH A.K.A. VINNIE FULLER

  The librarian in the state penitentiary at Wardville looks like he’s working—easy enough to do when your job is staring at a terminal. But IVR (in virtual reality, where his life is located) Azeath sits in Azeath’s Little Hell brooding. His login watcher, which notifies him of significant arrivals, tells him Reverdy’s just logged on to StElene. Handsome, smart, thought-we-could-be-friends. IVR, in virtual reality, Azeath is studying ways to destroy his nemesis in both places.

  Azeath hates Reverdy more than he loves Mireya, but Mireya doesn’t know it. True. It’s why he hooked up with her in the first place, he thought Reverdy would feel the insult every time Azeath and Mireya got it on IVR, well he was wrong.

  He and Reverdy can’t meet without sparring. Azeath comes out of these debates with blood in his palms RL, where he’s clenched his fists so hard that his nails cut crescents in the flesh.

  Could have been friends! They’re the two best programmers here, Az thought they would be powerful allies but the supercilious bastard thought he was too good for him. They clashed from the first over how things on StElene were supposed to be. The Directors want the power to end disputes. Azeath said they should have it.

  Reverdy said, “In an ideal society, everybody is equal.”

  Well take it from Azeath, he knows better. “Face facts. Nobody’s perfect. Somebody has to be in charge, might as well be us.”

  So much for his hopes; Reverdy snapped, “In a new democracy?”

  Well, every democracy needs its cops, just ask Azeath.

  Freedom. Equality. The sugar-coated liberal wouldn’t quit! Fucking Reverdy could argue God into a hole. Over time he stuck the goad in so deep that at his keyboard, Vinnie fell into a frothing rage RL and IVR, Azeath shouted: “What is it about me that you can’t stand, that I’m a better programmer?”

  Mr. just-don’t-I’m-above-it-all just laughed and came back, all holy and superior: “Call it a difference in personal style.”

  What Azeath hates most about Reverdy is, Reverdy honestly does believe he’s above it all. Comes on spouting thousand dollar words like
a storefront intellectual, well I’ll show him. And he will. When I get out, I will.

  What Azeath wants before he gets out is to have Suntum make him a Director. It is his aim. He’s a good programmer. He’s smart, even if he can’t talk the talk like Reverdy does. He’d be a Director right now if it wasn’t for that smooth, swiftmouthed shit.

  Everybody’s supposed to be equal on StElene, but these Suntum Directors, they get special powers: to eavesdrop on even the most private transactions in supposedly secured spaces; to pass or strike down people’s building plans. To destroy objects—including characters, like, they can take out entire people!—when it serves the corporate aim. Thirteen Directors, distinguished by the “St” attached to the character name: StOnge for one. StBrêve for another. StPaulo and StPhil. Two are women, but they’re pretty much sexless, the way a good Director should be. Like saints.

  Azeath wants it. He wants it bad. In fact in the prison library where he works eighteen-hour days to the delight of his supervisor, he keeps a placard he made in shop. He’ll put it on his desk when the time is right: StAz. Hell, when he becomes a Director on StElene he can throw Reverdy out himself. WHAM.

  He had a nice thing going, sucking up to StOnge and aiming for StBrêve, who he happens to know is a little bit higher up the food chain than the others. StBrêve is an actual company man paid by Suntum to keep the society on StElene doing like it should.

  In Wardville, Az has learned a couple of things. If you want to get ahead, volunteer.

  So he started by offering to sort data for StPhil, maintain mailing lists, that kind of thing. Moved up to Reaper, going into the database and eliminating players who still had character names but had stopped logging on. He’s good at computers. Always has been, likes it because, unlike fucking humans, computers do what you tell them and they don’t talk.

  Az got StOnge and StPhil’s confidence; they were working the other Directors, getting support for him. They were going to introduce him at a party in the grand ballroom, like he was going up for membership in some kind of flossy rich man’s private club. He was waiting for the Saints to come marching in when Reverdy arrived.

  Already he knew this was going to be bad. “Go away.”

  Reverdy just grinned. “Not until you hear what I have to say.”

  Az tried to move him @blitz! but he would not be moved.

  Rev said, “I know you don’t like me, but you deserve to be warned. You’re being co-opted. Don’t let Suntum eat your soul.”

  “What?” OK, he didn’t know what co-opted meant. “Say what?”

  “Watch out.” Damn Reverdy’s superior, I’m-hipper-than-you-are way. “The corporate sharks will chew you up and spit you out.”

  “Go to hell.” Partly he was pissed because he was confused, he yelled, “You just go to hell and fuck yourself to death.”

  “You don’t get that they’re using you?”

  “Shut up. Shut the fuck up!”

  Reverdy didn’t shut up, he just kept on. Taunting. Warning.

  Vinnie shouted, “What do you know? You don’t know anything.”

  “I’m smart enough to know when I’m being used.”

  This heated Vinnie to boiling. “Like I’m not?” When Reverdy didn’t answer, he yelled, “YOU THINK I’M NOT SMART?” OK it was a dumb thing to do: Azeath pasted in his best image: a devil—fangs, claws, the works, along with these words, spelled out in massed Xes and Os, UP YOURS.

  At the exact moment that StOnge and StPhil and the other ten teleported in. To see their protégé looking like an asshole. Az wanted to blame Reverdy but it was too late. Just as he launched his stupid display, he read: Reverdy disconnects.

  So that’s one.

  To get back in good with the Saints, he had to turn into a goddamn workhorse. It took him fucking years to get back into their confidence, and to add StAndrew to his FRIENDS list. Years.

  StOnge and StBrêve, they mostly like him now. He runs tables and searches logs for possibly subversive talk from players and sets up surveillance bugs to track how far these conversations go. He can do projections and crunch numbers with the best. Director material. Definitely Director material, and he secretly happens to know that when Suntum gets its shit together and puts this StElene application on the market, the regular programmers will get nothing because hell, it’s a game they just happened to be playing, but the Directors. The Directors are going to score.

  By that time he’ll be out. Directors run Suntum too, he’s pretty sure.

  It was so close that Az could almost smell the money, until.

  OK, him and StOnge and StBrêve were hanging out in the grand ballroom just like friends last March. StOnge had brought StBrêve around to prove Az was a new person and Azeath was trotting out his best devices to show them how far he’d come: the puppet programmed to log every conversation where the name Suntum comes up, the bugs players inadvertently attach to themselves; if he wants, he can record everything they say and do. He showed them the *propriety mailing list he’d started, where people file anonymous complaints naming players who get out of line; “We’ve got to weed out the riffraff,” he said, and the saints nodded their heads.

  He was beginning to figure out how to use their jargon, play on their fears. “Kick out anybody that’s bad for the enterprise.”

  “Yes,” StOnge said soberly. “The enterprise.” So they were all, yeah, yeah, they were like, Good Work, and then fucking Reverdy dropped in. Dropped in out of nowhere, did some kind of pirouette right there in the grand ballroom and said TO EVERYONE:

  “Kissing ass again, are you Azeath? Brown-nosing like a good little boy?”

  And right there in front of StOnge and StBrêve that Azeath had spent all this fucking time on, this holy, vicious Reverdy, revolutionary and known enemy of the corporation, tarred Azeath with the same brush. What he did was throw his arms around Azeath and give him a big sloppy kiss on the mouth.

  “Ghah!”

  Reverdy grinned. “Good man. Infiltrating the Directors, just like I said. You get in there and do like I told you, right? Destroy from the inside.” He finished with a hearty slap on the back. “Good going. Good man, I’m proud of you. That’s my boy!”

  Tarred, right. With the same brush. And Reverdy was laughing at him. Laughing! It was too much. IRL and IVR Vinnie Fuller lost it. Azeath just fucking lost it. He started throwing things around: Reverdy, the furniture. Ooops. StBrêve and StOnge.

  Hell, if he didn’t have this rotten temper he would of laughed it off and the Directors would still be cool with him. Instead they saw him lose it in front of everybody, in front of them and StOnge typed to StBrêve: “Too bad. Not our type after all.”

  And StBrêve typed back: “Definitely not our type.”

  And thirteen Directors teleported out.

  But Azeath’s going to get his. He’s going to get it back and he’s going to get it soon. He spends all his days these days cataloging, both on StElene and off. On StElene he’s been logging evidence, compiling things Reverdy’s said against the corporation. Criminal! Doesn’t he understand they are all beholden? If it wasn’t for Suntum International, they wouldn’t have this place! Az wouldn’t be rehabilitated like he is, in line for a job in data entry at Suntum just as soon as he gets out, as a Director, he can rise.

  So every time this Reverdy starts in, wherever he is, Azeath adds it to his log where all the damaging evidence festers. Now his collection is approaching critical mass. He’s making a bill of particulars. You might not be able to send a person to jail for the things Reverdy’s called Suntum: thieves, fascists, dictators, but you sure can get him kicked out. Or send him to hell, he thinks.

  Next week Vinnie’s going to call an online meeting of all thirteen Directors and if they come, if it goes right, they’ll attach “St” to Azeath’s name and make him Director number fourteen.

  He’s not a slick talker like his enemy so he’s been writing his lines ahead of time.

  “You’ve got a snake in your belly. He
’s out to ruin this place.” That’s one. Maybe he’ll say Reverdy is a terrorist and he’s using StElene as an online launching pad for terrorists planning to bomb Israel. Or blow up Palestine. Or explode the headquarters of Suntum International. Whatever, either way. Trouble here is, Azeath is still working out the details and he can’t move on it until he figures out a story that will fly.

  OK, there’s always Plan B. Plan B is convince the Directors that Reverdy’s trying to bring down Suntum International by introducing industrial spies. People from Apple and Microsoft. They’re already here! Zan for one, Lark. “They’re going to steal your application right out from under you and make a zillion bucks on it.”

  Sounds good, but who really thinks outsiders could steal StElene? OK, Plan C. Better go with Plan C. Azeath spends his time working various Directors, not sucking up, exactly, just kind of building character. Credibility, he guesses, that thing Reverdy says he so lacks. The guy is so fucking insulting! “Azeath! You know what your problem is, my friend? Your problem is, you lack credibility.”

  And I thought we could be friends.

  Never mind. Azeath is back in good. He thinks. This means he knows what kinds of things bother the Directors, at least he knows firsthand what’s bothering StOnge. He has a list. StOnge doesn’t know it but every time StOnge mentions a problem, Azarael writes it down in ballpoint on paper in real life. Directors can tell if you’re logging them so Vinnie wrote in this notebook, that he keeps RL. Right here at his desk in the library where he sits at his terminal from 9 A.M. when the place opens until 11 at night. But this is a bonus day. Inventory. The library is open all night.

  He’s printed a list of things the Suntum Directors are afraid of. He writes better than he talks, as they will see. This is it:

  The Things Suntum Directors are afraid of are:

  1. Anything that brings bad publicity to the corporation. That means players on StElene getting into trouble that leaks off the island: a stalking that bleeds over into RL; sexual harassment; virtual rape. If a guy went to jail for “raping” a woman in text on a couple of bulletin boards, it can happen in StElene.