Another Life. Part 4

'Go home,' Jack urged Gwen once more. He angled his head to look up at her. 'Rhys is waiting. You promised me that you'd keep hold of your life, remember? You may even have promised him. Don't let it drift.'

'What about you?'

Jack straightened up, and pushed his shoulders back to release the tension. 'Think I'm going swimming. I'm wet enough already. And it's time to reconnect with life after all this death today.'

'Sounds like fun,' Gwen smiled.

She walked back over to the police cordon, to let them know they were no longer required. The police photographer repacked his camera case with bad grace. The Brummie was trying to object, but Gwen cut short his protests, more snappishly than she would normally.

In the distance, Jack was opening the nearside door of the Vectra and reaching into the pa.s.senger seat. Gwen could see the thick woollen sock on his shoeless foot, sodden from his journey through the puddles. He'd still be working long after the rest of the team had finished, as usual.

She dialled home. Told Rhys she was sorry to be late. Again.

Should she be ashamed, or relieved, or grateful that he reacted so calmly? Again. Was he being calm, she wondered, or did he really not care? Or maybe he was watching Matrix Reloaded Matrix Reloaded on the DVD. Again. on the DVD. Again.

Rhys told her that he'd saved her some tea, and he promised not to eat it if she got a s.h.i.+ft on. 'Get a s.h.i.+ft on' was what he told the drivers at his office when they were running late. She told him thank you. And yes, he could eat the final strawberry yoghurt if it was reaching its use-by date she didn't fancy it tonight.

She listened again for clues in his voice, to antic.i.p.ate how he might be when she got back to the flat. Tired? Irritated? She let his words wash over her for a while, until she abruptly realised that he'd fallen silent. Asked her a question and was waiting for an answer. She'd let her mind wander, hadn't been listening properly to him.

She told him sorry, she was a bit tired, and they could have a proper talk when she got home. But as she hung up, she knew that she'd said that to herself every night for the past two months. That's what their evenings had become. Chit-chat, usually from him about office intrigue, or Banana Boat's road warrior stories, or Sonja the Secretary's latest emotional crisis. Telly often. Eating off a tray, some quick meal that Rhys usually cooked. Maybe some perfunctory lovemaking if they weren't too tired before bedtime.

She was going to walk home now. She gave Jack one last look, then turned towards the main road. The drizzling rain that had clung to her all evening was now a steady stream, splas.h.i.+ng in the growing puddles all around her.

Was this her life now? Was this what you expected, she asked herself. Can you continue to keep this from Rhys, from whom you never had secrets before? Or is this something new? Another life that you never expected, never knew existed. Do you have any idea how you got here?

SEVEN.

You have no idea how you come to be lounging in the back room of a hairdressing salon called the Lunatic Fringe. But that's where you find yourself this Sat.u.r.day night, watching the sunny day fade into memory as a sinuous teenager called Penny Pasteur pours your pina colada pina colada into a frosted martini gla.s.s. into a frosted martini gla.s.s.

Through the shop window a pair of neon curling tongs rotates and flashes. In the street there's a bustle of pedestrians heading home. Even from the back room, you can hear their scabbards clank against their leg armour as they stagger off to the stables to saddle up their steeds and gallop away. Penny kisses you, her tongue flicking briefly over your lips and teeth, before she withdraws to the kitchenette to rinse out the empty c.o.c.ktail shaker. To get there, she has to step over the corpse of an awkward customer, the Norse demiG.o.d called Kvasir whose neck you earlier snapped like a brittle branch after that altercation. He should never have insulted your dwarf a.s.sistants. And spitting in your eye was the final straw.

You are not the kind of guy who stares at danger with fear in your eyes. The strongest and brightest of your lineage, at six feet ten and fifteen stone you tower over your family physically and intellectually. Your stocky frame belies your litheness, and your twelve years of battle knowledge as a Brandywine dragoon places you in the marksman's upper quartile for accuracy, speed, and dexterity. Your strongest a.s.set remains your hand-to-hand combat experience, and there are few who can match you in an unarmed close-quarters brawl. Especially tall Scandinavians with long hair who can't tell the difference between a fiver and a tenner.

The sky outside darkens, presaging a storm. Beware the coming night, for agents of Chaos ride and you may be consumed by their powers.

You consider your clothes. The black leather jerkin covers a thin vest of meshed steel over a pure cotton chemise. The ends of your dark cotton trousers are stuffed into your st.u.r.dy black boots. A dragon motif emblazons your left breast.

You have stamina, you have drive. Your overriding ambition is an a.s.sault on the Wrestling League, to top it within three months, and to turn professional before year-end.

Beyond the shop window, off into the distance, the s.h.i.+mmering buildings of the Millennium Capitol beckon you. Though first you will need to make your way through the shadowed alleyways that surround Apzugard Bay. Beware the aerial beasts that swoop through the bruising purple sky, the predatory creatures from within the Bay, and the crazed, half-forgotten denizens of the Capitol slums who stand between you and your dream.

The door is ajar. Go forward now! Your destiny awaits!

You are Glendower Broadsword!

Continue? Y/N 'Glendower Broadsword?' laughed Tos.h.i.+ko. 'Put your weapon back in its scabbard, Owen. No one's impressed.'

Engrossed in the display on his terminal, Owen hadn't realised she was standing behind him. He clicked an icon at the top of the screen, and the text window minimised to reveal an image of the Lunatic Fringe. A row of barbershop chairs angled off into the distance, distinct shapes in primary colours. Through an inner door, a cartoon image of Penny Pasteur stood paused in a kitchen area, her back to a sink full of was.h.i.+ng-up. Penny's character wore a fluffy pink bikini that barely covered what even Owen would admit were implausibly large b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She'd be rubbish at doing the dishes, he decided. How could she see the crockery as she washed it?

Tos.h.i.+ko interrupted these idle thoughts when she took the mouse off him and maximised the text window. 'No point hiding it, Owen. I read most of it already' She scrolled down the words. 'What's this, you miserable s.e.xist? A serving wench attending to your every need. In a hairdressing hairdressing salon?' She made a half-hearted attempt to stifle her amus.e.m.e.nt and retreated back to her own work station. salon?' She made a half-hearted attempt to stifle her amus.e.m.e.nt and retreated back to her own work station.

Tos.h.i.+ko sat at her desk, surrounded by an acc.u.mulation of computer spares, alien artefacts, and stacked coffee cups. She eventually lifted her pretty almond eyes to look back at him through the piles of stuff. When she spotted Owen scowling at her, she fell into a new bout of giggling, and covered her mouth modestly with a raised hand.

Owen tried not to rise to this. 'I thought you'd been working on improvements to this game?'

'Keep your hair on, "Glendower".' She tapped a few more keystrokes at her terminal. 'I've got your enhancements here, as promised.' Tos.h.i.+ko came back over to Owen. She brought a DVD case and what looked like a motorcycle helmet with an opaque visor at the front. 'Before we get started, you should log off your Internet connection.'

'Because...?'

'Because you're only going to do this within the confines of Torchwood's firewall. At the moment, that low-resolution graphics version runs from the Second Reality Second Reality company's server machines in Palo Alto. Many thousands of people around the world, all simultaneously connected to a shared system. That's why they call it a "Ma.s.sively Multiplayer Online Game".' company's server machines in Palo Alto. Many thousands of people around the world, all simultaneously connected to a shared system. That's why they call it a "Ma.s.sively Multiplayer Online Game".'

Owen clattered away at his keyboard until the screen told him: 'Second Reality do you really wish to disconnect (Y/N)?' He pressed Y. 'See you next time, Glendower Broadsword!' it announced cheerfully. do you really wish to disconnect (Y/N)?' He pressed Y. 'See you next time, Glendower Broadsword!' it announced cheerfully.

Tos.h.i.+ko slotted the disc into the DVD drive of Owen's machine. The screen flashed up a series of messages, and the hard disk chattered as her software installed itself.

She hefted the helmet into Owen's lap, and proceeded to plug one of the attached cables into his computer. 'OK, this should do for now. Put these gloves on first.' She offered him a pair of bright blue items in a thin material, which Owen immediately recognised as the non-sterile disposable nitrile gloves he used for examinations and autopsies. Only these were now covered in wires and sensors, at the rear, along the side, even on the fingertips. 'Prototype data-gloves,' Tos.h.i.+ko told him, 'adjusted to allow haptic feedback.'

Owen screwed up his face into his 'what the h.e.l.l?' look.

'Reacts to touch,'

'So do I.'

'Careful not to get the wires tangled up,' sighed Tos.h.i.+ko. 'All right, put that on now. It's a head-mounted display system. There are two emissive electroluminescent screens embedded in the visor to give you a stereoscopic image. No, the other way round...' She helped him pull the helmet on correctly, and he thought that perhaps her fingertips lingered on the nape of his neck for just too long.

'It's very dark in here.' Owen's own voice reverberated in the helmet.

Tos.h.i.+ko's voice was m.u.f.fled now. 'It's not switched on yet. Here, pull the microphone up so it's just level with your chin. That's for the speech-to-text translation no need to do any more typing on your keyboard.'

'Just as well, I can't see a b.l.o.o.d.y thing! And what's that smell?'

'Cheese and onion crisps, I think. Just be patient, Owen. Right...'

A kaleidoscopic flare of colours made Owen flinch. Even with his eyes closed, he could see the flicker of light on his lids. When he opened them tentatively, a grid of bright green lines on a grey background vanished off into the distance. He moved his head tentatively to one side, and the field of lines whirled around him. When he leaned forward, the nearest lines got closer.

'Steady,' Tos.h.i.+ko told him. Her voice was perfectly clear now, playing through the speakers in either side of the helmet. 'It has six-axis position sensing, so it'll translate any movements you make into the virtual world. Careful if you twist around, because it's plugged into your computer.'

'I think I may be sick.'

Her m.u.f.fled voice sounded worried. 'That shouldn't happen. It's calibrated to keep in sync with your head movements.'

'No,' Owen teased her, 'I mean that I hate cheese and onion. Ouch!'

Tos.h.i.+ko had rapped hard on the top of the helmet with her knuckles. 'Pay attention, this is the science bit.' As she spoke, Owen could tell exactly where she was in the room from the way her voice moved between the two speakers. 'This is my early prototype. It should keep you happy while I try to sort out my stress test harness for the main implementation without the attached input devices.'

'Sounds kinky.'

'Software test harness, you perv.' He could hear her typing away at his computer keyboard while she set things up. 'The next stage will be to use projectors so that the user's not enc.u.mbered by the headgear and gloves. A proper, 3-D immersive environment, with natural interaction gestures. So you'll be able to touch objects, physically sculpt the world to make things.'

Owen nodded, and the green grid nodded with him. 'You mean I could make things happen by doing stuff, not just by describing stuff?'

'Exactly. Hang on, nearly there. Yes, there you go. As it is, what you're wearing there is a thousand times better than the commercially available version of Second Reality Second Reality. I've debugged a lot of their stuff, so you'll get fewer system crashes.'

'Smarta.r.s.e.'

'And as you can see, with the processing power we've got available through the Hub, the user environment is more photo-realistic too.'

Owen knew how Tos.h.i.+ko loved to talk technogeek. He was letting her chatter away without trying to understand it, but that last bit begged a question. 'What do you mean, photo-realistic?'

There was a pause. 'Ah. Sorry. Let me plug your helmet into the grid.'

Owen could hear her looking for a connection, scrabbling around between his knees. This looked promising...

And then he didn't need an explanation about this new system any more. He could see what she meant. He could experience it, right now. Because the world had come to life.

He was in the Lunatic Fringe. Sitting in one of the barber's chairs. Only they weren't the blocky shapes in primary colours that he'd last seen on his flatscreen display. These looked like cracked red leather, the machine st.i.tching clearly visible, some of it fraying on the arms where a thousand previous customers had levered themselves in and out of position for a haircut.

The chipped linoleum floor was strewn with hair clippings, patches of black and brown, blond and ginger that bore witness to previous customers. One of the previous customers, Kvasir, was still there, also on the linoleum, his body and limbs spread out clumsily in the scattered hair. His severed head, still implausibly in its horned helmet, lay against the bottom of the panelled wall, with black blood coagulated around the base of the neck. 'Change for a tenner,' remembered Owen. The realism of the dead body in front of him somehow made the earlier fracas more embarra.s.sing.

He turned at the sound of horses clopping by the shop window. A neon sign flashed beside the entrance door, weirdly illuminating the armour of the pa.s.sing pedestrians. Something alarmed a pa.s.sing horse. The animal gave a shrill whinny, and it half-reared up. The mounted rider attempted to rein it in, but the horse's nostrils flared and it reared again. A nearby maid in a mob cap shrieked in surprise 'Oh my Lord!' and dropped her bundle of provisions.

'What do you think?' asked Tos.h.i.+ko's voice.

He considered for a moment. 'Nice t.i.ts. You look good in pink.'

Penny Pasteur was standing in front of him, talking in Tos.h.i.+ko's voice. She tutted and sighed. She held out her bare arms and waggled her fingers in the air. The bangles on her wrists jingled as she moved, but Owen could also hear keys clicking, as though she was using an invisible typewriter. Penny spun on her heel like dancing a pirouette, and was instantly transformed.

Now she looked more like Tos.h.i.+ko Sato, down to the skin tone and short, black hair. Instead of a fluffy pink bikini she wore a smart black trouser suit, with a Nehru jacket b.u.t.toned up to the neck. Owen pouted, and pointed to a martini gla.s.s and c.o.c.ktail shaker on the kitchen counter beside her. 'I see you haven't finished the was.h.i.+ng-up either.'

'Don't make me slap you,' she warned him. 'This was the nearest character I could use to interact with you. Unless you count him.' She indicated the headless corpse. 'I think I'd better tidy him up, don't you? Nothing stays dead for very long in here.' She typed in mid-air again, and Kvasir's corpse snapped silently out of existence. 'There, I've even mopped the floor. I'll leave the dishwas.h.i.+ng for you.'

'This is just amazing, Tosh.'

'Tell me I'm a genius.'

'You've made your b.u.m smaller, I notice. Are you glamming yourself up?'

'You can talk,' she retorted. 'Have you seen yourself? I think you may have issues. "Glendower", indeed!'

He squared his broad virtual shoulders. 'So what? It's a computer game, not a psychology session. I have to admit, I am gobsmacked. This is fantastic, even for you.'

'Did I mention that I'm a genius?'

'You're a genius.' He stood up and stepped towards her, but banged his knee on an invisible desk. He could hear pencils and DVD cases scattering onto the floor, though he couldn't see them.

'Stop, stop,' urged Tos.h.i.+ko. 'You have to stay sitting at your desk. Don't go wandering off! You're still attached to your computer.'

Owen fumbled behind himself for his office chair in the real world, and settled back into it as though it was the leather barber's seat.

Tos.h.i.+ko glided over to him with an unfamiliar sinuous grace. 'Try gesturing with your data-gloves. They can move you about as though you're using your keyboard.'

Owen tried a few movements. At first he managed to upend himself, which had the disorienting effect of giving him an inverted view of the barber-shop while his body told him he was still the right way up. Soon he'd mastered the gestures, and was striding around the Lunatic Fringe as though he owned the place. Which, virtually speaking, he did.

'When I get it sorted out,' Tos.h.i.+ko explained, 'it'll be able to use positional info from the cameras and sensors here in the Hub. The tracking devices in our mobile phones. That kind of thing. And the resolution will be good enough to be close to real life.'

'Fleshs.p.a.ce,' he told her.

'Eww. What?'

'That's what players of Second Reality Second Reality call the real world.' call the real world.'

'One day, I'll be glad to welcome you to the real world, Owen.'

'I don't imagine I could do this in fleshs.p.a.ce.' He reached out and fondled virtual Tos.h.i.+ko's breast through the material of her Nehru jacket. The sensors in his gloves pressed softly against his fingers and the palm of his hand. A series of smacks on his real-world head made his ears ring. 'Ouch! Come on Tos.h.!.+ Stop slapping my helmet.'

Tos.h.i.+ko's attack ceased. 'I bet you wouldn't say that to Penny Pasteur if you made contact in fleshs.p.a.ce.'

From outside the shop came the sound of a shrill whinnying. Owen wafted a gesture, and his virtual self walked to the front of the shop. A hunter was half-rearing up, snorting nervously, startled by something. A maid in a mob cap and a dusty overcoat was shying away from the creature.

Owen grabbed for the door handle, in the hope of rus.h.i.+ng out and pulling the maid to safety. Before he could seize it, the door wrenched itself open, and he was in the street. The maid leapt to one side with a cry of 'Oh my Lord!' and dropped her bundle of shopping. A large ham bounced out of its wrapping and onto the pavement. By the time the hunter's rider had calmed the creature, the maid had recovered her composure and her ham. Owen watched her scurry away down the street.

Tos.h.i.+ko peered at him through the shop doorway. 'You must be Prince Charming,' she told him. 'Go on, slap your thigh for me.'

Owen re-entered the shop. The door closed, and the shop bell tinkled prettily behind him.

Tos.h.i.+ko tutted. 'Glendower Broadsword. You've tried to create an avatar for the game with no weaknesses or flaws. People aren't like that in real life. No one's a fairy-tale character, all good or all evil. And neither are characters in the game.'

Owen growled at her. 'Well, my character is. Like I said, this isn't a psychology session.'

'You're in denial.'

'Very good,' smiled Owen. 'I can hardly dispute that statement.'

'Well, be careful what you wish for, Prince Charming.'

'I'm glad you're not my Cinderella.'

Tos.h.i.+ko wiggled her typing fingers, and looked out of the window expectantly.

Owen followed her gaze. A huge sphere of metal and gla.s.s crashed out of the sky and onto the pavement, crumpling and distorting as it came to rest. Owen nearly leapt out of his real-life office chair with shock.

For a second, he thought the whole thing had dropped onto a couple of white horses in the street, before he saw that they were shackled to the tangled remains of the shape. They were apparently unharmed, but still attached to the wreckage by golden reins. Two coachmen in pink waistcoats staggered back to their feet, and helped a beautiful young woman to step gingerly from the strewn debris of her coach. As she brushed gingerly at the shards of gla.s.s on her iridescent ball gown, the coachmen spun on their heels and transformed into rodents before scurrying off. The coach was now merely the remains of a large pumpkin splattered on the pavement. The woman's ball gown had dissolved into s.m.u.tted rags. When she saw them, she gave a little cry of despair and proceeded to limp off down the street through the uncaring pedestrians.