Galaxy's Edge Magazine: Issue 7: March 2014 (23 page)

“One to two months,” said Dr. Duncan.

ZpprBrkr33:
Do it!!!!

Tinatastic:
Take the nano, man, take the nano!

CowwSezMoo2:
Dont be stoopid man!

Closing my eyes, I shut out the tide of Yapstream posts. “So in a best case scenario, I’ve got six months left.”

“Yes,” said Dr. Duncan. “So what do you want to do?”

***

I told him I needed to think about it, and then I left. I decided to take the rest of the day off and headed straight for my favorite bar, where I ordered up the hard stuff as soon as I walked in the door.

As I sat and drank, gnat-cams or gnats buzzed around me, drawing the occasional swat. Yapstream posts popped up around me, too, telling me to do one thing or another.

Then, the message I’d been expecting arrived: the announcement of a Crowdlife-wide fatevote to decide if I should have nanotherapy.

Just then, another message got my attention … an incoming call. Flicking my eyes over the contact lens controls, I answered it. Instantly, the appearance of my surroundings shifted, reshaped by the A.R. lenses to look like the interior of Liz’s office in the Backlot.

“Hey, Cage.” Her voice was clear in my head, beamed in through the aural implants behind my ears. Her image was right in front of me, seated as always within the holographic control well. “You owe me a steak dinner, hon, plus top-shelf cocktails.”

“Oh yeah?”
I straightened on my barstool.

“I thought your whole lifehacker theory was pure baloney,” said Liz. “But then I analyzed recent protests among gracefallers and noticed a pattern.
Seems there’ve been other cases of inexplicably insane outcomes in Crowdlife lately.”

“How many?”

“Fifty-seven worldwide over the past two weeks,” said Liz.

I whistled softly.
“Any connection between the victims?”

“None.”
Liz ran her fingers over the glowing controls in the well. “But I did turn up a link between the fatevotes that led to their outcomes.” She tapped a finger on one of the screens in the well. “What I found is an elaborate system of vote trading conducted by an army of kamikaze A.I. proxy drones.

“The proxy drones commandeer Crowdlife lobbyists—A.I.s dispatched by system users to convince other users to vote certain ways. The proxies use the lobbyists to assemble blocs of carefully aligned votes, and then
boom
. They trigger a chain reaction of fatevotes setting off a web of outcomes.

“Then the drones self-destruct,” continued Liz. “The only traces they leave are the recorded movements of the enslaved lobbyists, which are buried under layers of obscure vote trades.”

I shook my head in amazement. “Who could be capable of implementing a strategy that sophisticated?”

“Someone who doesn’t want to be found,” said Liz. “But I found ’em, anyway.” She pointed at the name on the screen facing me.

“Dada Wyrm, Inc.” I felt a jab of pain in my gut and winced. “Got a physical address for this outfit?”

***

Within the hour, I was standing in front of a door in an uptown apartment building—number 23. Gut aching, I took a deep breath and raised my fist to knock. At least I wasn’t distracted by any Yapstream popups; as a C.O.E. agent, I was able to block Yapstream during moments of imminent danger.

As I knocked on the door with my left hand, I kept my right wrapped around the grip and trigger of my gun. No one answered my knock. I leaned closer but could hear nothing from the other side of the door.

“Crowdlife Outcomes Enforcement,” I shouted. “Open up. We need to ask you a few questions.”

Next time, I knocked with the butt of the gun. Again, there was no reply.

Reaching down, I tried the doorknob … and was surprised when it turned in my hand. Pushing the door open, I stepped over the threshold. Sweat trickled down my back as I peered into the darkness, keeping my gun raised in case of attack.

As I took another step forward, a holographic panel leaped to life in front of me, an online screen as tall as I was and twice as wide. Blinking at the sudden flare of light, I saw the familiar orange and green
homepage of Crowdlife zoom out of the center and fill the screen from edge to edge.

Gut burning, I tried to walk around the screen for a closer look at the rest of the room … but the image of the screen stayed in front of me no matter which way I turned.

Suddenly, the screen changed from the Crowdlife homepage to the familiar box-and-column layout of a fatevote in progress. The question being voted on appeared at the top of the screen in bold black letters:
Should Agent Grice hop on his left or right foot while battling the three killers walking down the hall?

The tally was in the hundreds of millions for either option, and the leader was “Right Foot” with 67% of the vote.

I spun to face the doorway with my gun at the ready, and the screen stayed square in front of me. I heard three sets of footsteps in the hall, not far away, but it was hard to focus with the fatevote tally flashing in my face.

Just then, the numbers stopped changing, and the winning choice turned bright red and expanded to five times its original size. “Right Foot” had won by a landslide.

An audio message played in my aural implants. “Agent Grice must now comply with the outcome of this fatevote, according to the Crowdlife terms of service that he signed on October 21, 2192.”

The screen finally dissolved … just as a tall man dressed in a red uniform pushed through the doorway, brandishing a rifle.

Without hesitation, I fired my pistol, throwing two shots into the intruder’s forehead. The impact spun him to the floor with a heavy thud, clearing a path for the next guy to push through.

I was getting ready to fire again when the Crowdlife screen reappeared smack in front of me with a f
a
miliar message:
Agent Grice must now comply with the outcome of this fatevote, according to the Crowdlife terms of service that he signed on October 21, 2192.

“Damnit!”
I gave in and hopped on my right foot, and the screen vanished. With a clear shot at the bad guy, I let loose three slugs—one to the forehead, one to the throat, one to the chest in quick succession.

As soon as the second shooter dropped, number three barged in and started firing. Taking aim while hopping wasn’t easy, but I managed to tag him in the temple and shoulder, dropping him beside the other two attackers.

With all three down, I stopped hopping and bolted into the hallway. Looking one way and then the other, I saw no additional intruders.

But a heartbeat later, the Crowdlife screen leaped up in front of me without warning, displaying the tabulation of another fatevote in progress. This time, the Crowd was voting on a new question:
Agent Grice: Off limits or open season?

So far, there were zero votes in favor of me being off limits.

Heart bashing my ribs like
a boxer’s fist, I charged down the hall. The whole time, the Crowdlife screen stayed in front of me, making it tough to see where I was going.

Just as I reached the elevator, it dinged, and the Crowdlife screen hopped aside. The doors sprang open, revealing a pack of howling maniacs wearing hockey goalie masks and brandishing machetes.

The screen slid back in front of me, revealing the fatevote results. It came as no surprise that the winner was “Open Season.”

The Crowdlife screen vanished. Bolting past the elevator, I ran for the stairs. Every step of the way, the howls and footfalls of the machete-bearing maniacs were close behind.

Throwing open the door, I barreled down two flights of stairs like my feet were on fire. When I got to the bottom, I crashed through the exit door without slowing down.

And I found myself facing a mob armed with cream pies and fire hoses.

As soon as I emerged from the stairwell, the cream pies
came
flying in my direction. One after another, they bombarded me, covering me with gooey cream.

When that fusillade stopped, I wiped enough goop from my eyes to see that the Crowdlife screen had reappeared. This time, the text was a direct message to me:
No more advance warnings, Agent Grice. Our fatevotes will be invisible to you from now on. You will pay the price for sticking your nose in our business.

As soon as the screen blinked out, the mob cut loose with the fire hoses.

I was blasted back by what I thought at first were jets of water … but I quickly realized the liquid was something else. Something with a noxious smell I knew all too well.

Gasoline.

Pinned against the stairwell door by the force of the jets, I shut my eyes and mouth. Gathering my strength, I staggered right, letting the current push me until I rounded the corner of the building.

Then, I charged down the street away from the mob. I ran as hard as I could into the night, praying no one would flick a lit cigarette in my direction.

***

Drenched in gasoline, spattered with pie cream, I ran for blocks, winding my way through the heart of the city. When I finally thought I was clear, I ducked into an alley and threw myself against the wall, heaving for breath.

I was in over my head this time; the only help I could turn to was Liz in the Backlot. Without further delay, I flashed
her an
emergency ping. There wasn’t time to traverse the virtual environment of the Backlot in the usual way, soaring down into the crystalline city and alighting in her office.

She responded immediately. Through my A.R. contacts, I saw her image pop into the alley, standing three feet away from me.

“Cage!”
She looked instantly worried. “What happened?”

“Lifehackers,” I told her. “They ambushed me at the Dada Wyrm address.”

“You look terrible!”

“I barely got away.” My stomach twisted, and I doubled over … then sucked in my breath and straightened. “They’re spinning rogue fatevotes, siccing the Crowd on me. They want me dead, Liz.”

She nodded grimly. “I’m on it, Cage. I’ll do what I can.”

I heard voices in the distance and looked at the mouth of the alley. “I don’t think we’ve got much time for it, either.” I swatted at the ubiquitous swarm of tiny bugs swirling around me. “They can track my feed from the gnat-cams through Crowdlife.”

“I’ll do everything I can.” Liz stopped working unseen controls and met my gaze with her warm brown eyes. “Just try to hang on, Cage.”

Because I’ve got so much to live for?
The cancer would take me in a matter of months, anyway. I shouldn’t care, should I?

But I did. “I’ll do my best, Liz.”

Just then, the voices rushed up, and people poured into the alley. They washed over me in an angry tide,
snatching away my gun and hauling me off my feet.

As they dragged me away, I heard Liz’s voice over the frenzied roar, calling to me from the Backlot. “Hang on, Cage!”

Then, she was gone, and I was on my way to whatever madness awaited in unknown quarters.

***

The mob stripped me naked in the street, then wrapped me in Christmas paper and pelted me with eggs. When that was done, they stripped off the wrapping paper, rolled me in a red carpet, and peed on me while singing cartoon theme songs from the 70s.

My treatment went downhill from there. Each abuse, each outcome of a Crowdlife fatevote engineered by the Dada Wyrm lifehackers, was more bizarre than the last.

They dragged me through an art museum in a little red wagon and smashed famous paintings over my head, one after another. When they were done with that, they shoved me into a koala costume, poured grease down my back, and spun me in circles until I vomited. Next, they stuffed me into a knee-length green dress and spiked heels and made me bungee jump off the Crosstown Bridge.

All the while, the pain in my gut intensified. By the time they plunked me on the dance floor in a nightclub and beat me with frozen legs of lamb to the tune of “The Chicken Dance,” I felt myself losing ground. I hadn’t been at my best to begin with; I wasn’t sure how much more insane torture I could take.

Not that the mob ever seemed to run out of new ideas. They blindfolded me, threw me in a dumpster full of loaded diapers, and let me dig my way out with one arm tied behind my back. They put on stork masks and pecked the hell out of me while reciting the preamble to the Constitution. They tried to force-feed me live tarantulas and crumpled-up pages of old comic books.

Then, finally, there was a break in the action. They led me into an empty school gymnasium and left me there.

Heaving for breath, I stood at center court and looked around. The place was peaceful and dark, lit only by the dim red Exit signs over the doors.

For a moment, I dared to hope that my ordeal was over. Maybe the lifehackers were finally done with me; maybe they figured I’d gotten the message.

I wiped blood off my face with the back of my arm,
then
wiped my arm on the front of the green dress. I was about to kick off the damn spiked heels and head for the nearest door, just in case I had a chance to get away.