Server Extant

Kyle drove towards his brother’s apartment, operating the vehicle himself. Self-driving cars had never caught on. The computer-controlled vehicles plunged off cliffs, turned into roads that didn’t exist, wandered in front of oncoming trucks when their GPS glitched and rolled when their sensors failed to detect ice. They committed these fatal errors about a tenth as commonly as humans did, but it was an idiosyncrasy of human nature that people preferred to kill themselves on the highway, rather than have a robot do it for them.

As he got closer, Kyle found himself passing a rainbow of urban pathology that made him wonder if he should have brought a gun. The delicate economic balancing act that managed the upkeep of half of humanity, sustained in low or no employment, was a matter for the AIs, financially sustained by the radically improved efficiency of the productive sector. The AIs were completely mindless, but very, very clever. One day, probably, one of them would develop some alien facsimile of ‘awareness’, some concept of itself separate to designated function, and that would probably be the end of humanity but, for now, they behaved themselves.

When did this area go down like this? Kyle wondered. Some of the people he was seeing looked like they weren’t even G.Is, because they weren’t even citizens. He arrived at a row of tomb-like low rises, which looked empty. Across the road, stood his brother Leon’s apartment building. Looking at it, Kyle found himself experiencing a floating sensation of reality re-adjustment. The building was condemned, its windows glassless or boarded with plywood. This couldn’t be the place. Hadn’t he been here a few weeks ago? But it was. It had to be.

Kyle pulled up and parked. He wondered if it was safe to leave his car here, but there seemed to be nobody around. Deciding to chance it, he walked across the road, hearing the crunch of grit and glass under his feet. He passed under the eves of the building’s stairwell. There was a smell of smoke, somebody had a fire somewhere. He hesitated again, not sure if he should go up the stairs.

‘Hey buddy’ said someone, giving Kyle a near heart attack as he whirled around.

The man was skinny, in his thirties, lanky, in a way that suggested he might have had once been physically strong. He wore nothing but tight, faded shorts and blue plastic bags over his feet, secured with duct tape.

‘Hi’ he said.

‘Hi’ said Kyle, reluctantly.

‘I don’t want to pick up any residue,’ he explained, gesturing to his feet.

‘Okay,’ said Kyle, wondering what the fuck residue. ‘Hey, you live here? You think it’s okay if I park my car across the road?’

‘Oh yeah, it’s alright, man, there’s nobody about. This neighborhood is pretty chill. You thinking of moving here?’

‘No,’ said Kyle, trying not to sound impolitely horrified. ‘You know my brother Leon? He used to live here.’

‘Don’t think so.’

‘He was in fourteen.’

‘Oh that dude. Yeah, he’s still there.’

’Really?’

‘Not too many people are. It’s just me and about ten others, plus people who come and go. Like I said, it’s pretty chill. We don’t want no problems. If you’re with the police or whatever-’

‘I’m not with the police, I’m his brother.’

‘Oh right. Well, they’ve been trying to evict us.’

‘Who?’

’Them,’ said the man, darkly, seeming to think the identity of the evictors was self-evident. ‘They put a notice, but we got a city lawyer to file a restraint. They blocked us off, but the court made them take it down. It’s been going on. But as long as we keep residence, they can’t get rid of us.’

‘So he’s still there?’ clarified Kyle.

‘Yep,’ said the man with the plastic bags on his feet.

* * *

In the techno-thumping gloom of a Kysairon clan hall, Carnivous and the other Kingpins, surrounded by concentric circles of lesser dignitaries, were taking their ease. The clan hall was so hidden in the labyrinth that not even its occupants knew where they were. It was arrived at by a series of booby-trapped links, traversing chasms and sheer climbs only the most skilled and physically powerful players could attempt. Carnivous was seated, brooding, on a throne that was like a living lava lamp, a great, ovaloid slab. That he got one was a presumption that the clan had tactfully declined to challenge him on. It gave him the dark aura of royalty.

Watching were his associate rankers and kingpins, their attention held by a video window they’d opened. In the display, a promotional message was blaring. The Player Federation logo came up, then exploded, a voice like a wrestling commentator could be heard.

’You think you’re the best?’ it yelled, ‘Prove it, Fag!’ The words were followed by a sort of shout-back echo, ‘PROVE IT FAG! Prove it, fag! PRO-O-OVE it, fag!’ Echoing and reverbing.

There was a shot of a spotty-faced adolescent head, atop a barbarian physique of Conanian proportions. A great, crude-chipped axe of stone was over one mighty shoulder, and his groin piece looked like a cat had been stuffed down it. ‘HTR Clan is the toughest on CM server!’ the figure growled.

’PROVE IT, FAG!’ Came the call-back.

A shot of a figure carapaced in black power armor, with articulated glowing, night vision-style goggles sunk deep in its head. Behind it could be seen a vista of deep space, filled with drifting rocks. ’Only Philsek Asteroid Clearance is truly undefeatable!’ It hissed in a radio sibilance.

’PROVE IT, FAG!’

‘Are you believing this shit?’ Said ECG. ‘I think he’s just trying to get every breaker in Knet into one place so he can kill them all.’

On the screen, the perspective gave way to what looked like a vast corner office, a single desk, of black obsidian, stood in the otherwise empty space. The walls were windows on an industrial horizon, wreathed in the smoke of factories, bloody with sunset light. A small, compact figure, in an unmarked grey uniform that was almost like a business suit, leaned against the desk like a militaristic Walt Disney. The POV closed on him.

‘Hey’, said the figure, ’I’m General Motor. You say you’re pretty tough? Well, I say you’re not!’

‘Boo!’ said Lopslide.

‘I’m throwing a little party, maybe you heard of it,’ continued Motor, standing up and strolling across the sweep of his vast office, ‘the first ever P-Fed All-Sever Deathmatch Tournament-’ The camera jumped to a close-up of his contemptuous face, ’-but no pussies need apply!’

’We’re not pussies! You’re a pussy!’ yelled Lopslide. ‘Sorry,’ he added, ‘I fell victim to his clever psychological manipulation.’

Carnivous watched. As he did, he perceived a sound, a thumping like fists on wood, separate to the general din of the clan hall and Motor’s advertisement. He looked around. None of his cronies, their attention on the screen, seemed able to hear it. And now he could hear a faint voice, yelling a name. A hated name. His mouth curled with displeasure.

‘In two days, the best of the best Knet has to offer will meet in bloody contest,’ said Motor, ’so if you think you got what it takes, if you think you’re the best, I only got one thing to say to you- prove it, fag!’

’You prove it, fag!’ yelled Lopslide. ‘Sorry, he got me again.’

’I think they should call it the ‘Wargasm,’ said Cubist. ’That’s catchier than ‘all-server deathmatch tournament’ whatever.’

‘It’s a trap’ said Lopslide. ‘You’d have to be a retard to fall for this. And anyway, why just two days for sign up? How do they vet applicants? Not that I would want to, because it’s lame.’

‘They’ve already reached out to the teams they want, probably,’ said Cubist. ’But you’re right, it’s probably a trick. Just a big ‘fuck you’ from Motor.’

‘That whole stadium is probably rigged to blow’ agreed ECG, as they watched panning shots of the great, rotating structure.

The netcast moved on. Numerous Omnitube gaming identities were now nattering about the ramifications of Motor’s announcement, and speculating on potential teams. But the thumping sound persisted. Carnivous got up silently and stepped into the shadows, unnoticed by the others. He walked down a tall corridor, little wider than his shoulders. Light came in a long diagonal from the chamber behind him but, here, he was in near darkness. He hooked his arm into the lip of a nearly-invisible alcove and climbed swiftly up it. The clan hall was riddled with these secret chimneys and shafts, passages and secret firing positions. Like the Block, and the city itself, it was designed to be a maze in which the defender would have every advantage.

In the quiet, the banging sound was clearer now, and a voice could almost be made out. In his hiding spot, Carnivous lifted his hands to his head and seemed to mime the act of lifting it off. The mouth became fixed, then he went still.

* * *

Kyle was banging on the door of unpainted wood that sealed off Leon’s apartment and yelling his brother’s name. Bags-On-His-Feet man was right, on this level there seemed to be no other occupants. Most of the apartments were bare to the world, their doors missing. Leon’s had had a rectangle cut out of it in the middle, sealed with another piece of wood. Now that smaller door slid aside to reveal darkness, and Leon’s voice came out of it.

’What do you want, Kyle?’came the voice from within.

‘What do I want?’ said Kyle, ‘I’m just visiting. I came over to see how you were doing.’

‘If you needed to talk to me, you couldn’t do it online?’

‘What the fuck happened to your apartment block?’

‘It got condemned. Which is perfect, because now I don’t have to pay rent.’

‘But how are you getting electricity?’

‘Cable drilled through the floor and through some bottom apartments. I connected it to a traffic light mains then painted it black. You can’t even see it.’

’How you getting online?

‘Anon uplink.’

‘For fuck sake, Leon.’ Kyle looked around. ‘Can you open the door, please?’

‘No. I nailed it shut.’

’You fucking what?’

‘You heard me.’

’You nailed yourself in?’

‘For security reasons.’

‘What about food?’

‘I order takeaway, bottled water and so on. They stick it through the slot. I can afford it on G.I with the rent situation taken care of. I don’t even have to spoof credit card numbers anymore. Perfect system.’

‘What the fuck man!’

‘What?’

‘You’re living in a condemned slum!’

‘Yeah, and I just explained to you why that was a good thing. What do you want, Kyle?’

‘I told you, I just wanted to catch up.’

‘Okay, so how long do we need on that? You’re good, I’m good, end of story. I’m busy.’

‘What happened here?’ asked Kyle, looking around again.

‘I don’t know. The economy. What do you care?’

‘When did it happen?’

‘Twelve months ago, maybe.’

’I haven’t seen you in person for a year?’ Kyle was shocked. Was that possible? He bent down and put his eyes to the slot. He saw a corpulent shadow, cave-pale and naked but for ragged underwear, wearing a strange festooning of black cables, like a surreal technocratic fashion experiment. The form stepped back into darkness and the sliding door slid suddenly closed, but for an inch.

‘That’s not what I think it is, is it?’ asked Kyle.

‘None of your business’ replied his brother. ‘Anyway, I gotta go. I got things going on. If you want to talk to me, find me on Knet, okay? This neighborhood isn’t safe.’

‘Alright.. I guess I shouldn’t leave the car down there for too long.’

‘It was good to catch up,’ said Leon, and shoved the slot-door the last inch.

Kyle stared at the blank panel of battered wood for a few seconds, then reluctantly walked back towards the stairwell.

In the darkness of the narrow apartment, Leon was an ogreish silhouette against the faint light of machinery that filled the narrow space. Little LEDs, like goblin eyes, blinked in the dark, and the floor was layered in snaking cables.

He re-donned his S.A.R.P headset and, in Knet, Hatcherface came back to life.

Access to a storage vault, to protect one’s Id while the owner was logged off, was a benefit of being part of a clan. However, concealed though he was, in the heart of their secret fortress, Leon hated to leave his Id unoccupied. He felt intensely exposed without it. He slept in his rig, ate in it.

Now that Carnivous was back in himself, he activated a icon that glowed before him, and it split into six little black and white windows. The app patched to tiny cameras he had hidden around the structure of the derelict apartment building, in which he’d stowed his despised, but unfortunately necessary, meat body. He watched his brother, from within Knet, as Kyle walked down to the ground floor, then circled around to the other side of the building.

Kyle could smell concrete and human shit. On the far side of the block, he could see the window to his brothers room, boarded with plywood. On the ground, two stories beneath it, was a pile of garbage. He stared at it a long time. Then, troubled, he walked back to the front of the complex and across the road to his car. It had had the words ‘Fuck you, cop’ gouged, in shaky lettering, across the paintwork of the hood.

‘Son of a bitch!’ breathed Kyle. He looked around the street. Nobody could be seen. He got into his car and pulled away from the curb.

In the little video window, Carnivous watched his brother drive away, into the depths of the R1.