The purple, glitter-covered door opened just a crack.
It was just enough to let the assistant, Kyle, get his head in. The inrush of noise that came in with him was deafening.
“—nutes, Ms. Shields.” The first half of his sentence swallowed by the roar of the crowd.
Kendra didn’t react. Her back turned to the man.
He wasn’t sure if she heard him or not. What to do? Presume she didn’t hear and repeat himself at the risk of breaking some Diva trance meditation she was into and lose his job? Or presume she heard him and risk an empty stage in ten minutes and lose his job? Kyle looked back over his shoulder as if that would somehow help make his choice clearer. The crowd noise was an almost physical thing.
She seemed like such a sweet girl on all the album covers, commercials, and scintillating videos that made him question his orientation even if he was criminally older than her and openly gay since middle school. But the horror stories were out there: pop stars and their legendary tempers. He was pretty sure she could kill him where he stood and no court in the Infi-Net would press charges.
Professional integrity forced his foot in the door; momentum pushed the other one after it. A nugget of cattiness that told him he wasn’t about to be afraid of some teenage bubblegummer closed the door behind him. Wherewithal churned his legs forward. Courage reached out with his hand, and defiant uncertainty tapped the little bombshell on her milky, beglittered shoulder.
Nothing.
No reaction at all.
Now he was worried she was dead and people would think he did it.
He risked a peek around her curtains of beautiful hair.
He paused for a moment to wonder what product she used? Just the right amount of sheen and bounce, it was a great look.
He shook it off and proceeded to peek.
Pupil-less eyes stared at the forest of bouquets, chocolates and fruit baskets in front of her.
Kyle backpedaled and tripped over a complimentary ham.
•••
Nine minutes, Brin appraised.
Nine minutes before GoogolSoft finished its conversion and uploaded the whole planet of Portland online to become the capitol of his new and improved universe. Let HappyCo. suck on that, man.
He watched as the machines churned with life… and hope.
Meanwhile the rest of the Guiding Hands were all boning each other in their cubicles and smoking their whatevers, getting their last feel of the flesh out of their system before Go Time. Good for them, he nodded to himself.
He sniffed his finger surreptitiously. Whatshername, Sunflower? Suntower? Sunshower? Whatever, it was, she smelled like vanilla, rose-essence, submission, fear… victory. He smiled his wolfish smile.
He’d of course miss the flesh, but he already had himself a lady lined up on the other side. Besides, he and whatshername would always have the conference room table.
He rubbed his hands together, devilishly thinking, Soon my metal flower, soon.
•••
It had to be more than eight minutes, R.T. insisted, as if reality would bow to her overwhelming logic.
Despite her denial, her internal clocks agreed with the readouts on the various monitors. How had so much time been lost? Why was nothing where she left it? How did all these people get into the Infi-Net?!
She had to surface and get a message to Brin before it was too late. Before she ruined everything… more than it already was.
R.T. closed her eyes and willed herself back out to the real world.
At least, that’s what was supposed to happen.
Her one eye opened to confirm that she was still sitting in her little swivel chair in Command and Control.
Shit.
•••
“In seven minutes, the shit is going to go down,” Sim-Chris barked around his cigarillo. He looked out over his best, most elite Revolutionaries gathered in one place for the first time. Each one a victim of the replacement reality that encroached all around them.
Pillow Cat, his Gal Friday and perpetual Net sensation. Nuncharley, be-afroed, would-be ninja, famous for concussing himself with a Nunchaku on film. Paul Pitcher, androgynous boy-child, famous for a meltdown/tirade defending Kendra Spears’ good name. Space Knight Kid, a heavyset boy whose anti-balletic display of combat ability left him famously mocked. Many more lined up in the second row, Nuba Nuba Guy, Dramatic Guinea Pig, Samgood, Teh Dawg and Tay Sondetre stuck together. Two girls shared a cup, etcetera.
Of course not all of his army were infamous victims of the Infi-Net: the Marvelous Marmoset (hacker and boy-genius), the Sims and his growing, nameless mob were here of their own free will.
All were prepared to take the fight to GoogolSoft, to take the Infi-Net back to reality. For that they needed something dramatic, a rallying cry. A lever big enough to move the universe.
After his prolonged pause he looked at all these good soldiers and asked one question. “Are you ready?”
With a hundred fists and a hundred voices they answered in the positive.
“I have to log now, my children. But have no fear, you will know it is time by the sign.”
Another chorus of cheers erupted.
With one last look to Pillow-Cat, Sim-Chris faded away in a swarm of dissipating ones and zeroes.
•••
“—less than six minutes!” His boss shouted over the wall of noise at Kyle, like he didn’t know.
Leaving his body behind didn’t make him any less of an a-hole, Kyle thought.
They finished their looping journey through the bowels of the eTunes stage. They paused outside the purple door. The star on it that said Kendra in bright red letters.
They each looked to the other, silently daring them to be the one to enter the breach. Kyle made a sweeping gesture inviting the boss to be his guest.
The boss (whose name I don’t know, we’ve never been introduced) thought about pulling rank. If what Kyle said was true, and Kendra Shields—due on stage in less than six minutes—was reduced to an eyeless zombie, it was probably his job to deal with it. His mouth scrunched up like a fleshy, red tissue. He conceded their little standoff.
His meaty hand wrapped around the doorknob, and turned slowly. He dreaded what was on the other side but threw the door wide. Kyle stood behind his boss ready to flee in case Zombie-Kendra had become motivated to eat their brains or something.
Instead she brushed her hair, singing to herself. Some lilting lyrics about a pretty kitty going bang-bang or something.
She turned to confront the interruption, as surprised as anybody.
She had pupils, Kyle noted.
She had pupils, his boss noted slightly more angrily than Kyle just had.
“What’s going on?” She pouted innocently, her eyes widening ever so cutely.
“Yeah, I sure don’t know.” The boss gritted his teeth and turned slowly, hoping his eyes gained the ability to murder Kyle.
No such luck.
Kyle smiled sheepishly. “Five minutes,” he supplied, holding up all the fingers on his right hand to demonstrate the concept of five for her. He was so fired.
•••
Diana checked her watch: about four minutes.
Four minutes before she and the girls followed the rest of the Storyverse into the Infi-Net.
Something, someone—a straggler—groaned under her talons. Without looking away from her timepiece she squeezed the trigger and sent a quick bark of bullets into the body below her.
It stopped groaning and started stinking.
She plopped down onto the slick, metallic streets and let out a shrill whistle. (…seriously? You’re going to accept that a chicken can fire an Uzi and look at her watch, but not whistle? What kind of a realism Nazi are you? It was a palatal whistle alright? Leave me be or I will kick you in the cloaca.)
Her sisters stopped what they were doing.
One notable duo were in mid-tagging HappyCo. sucks my unfertilized ova on the side of a billboard for McHappy’s (a subdivision of HappyFoods, a subdivision of HappyCo.).
“Round it up girls! It’s time to get online!”
•••
Brin felt pretty ding-dong good about himself as the final minutes ticked by.
At least he did until a monitor came to life nearby. A grainy image flickered in and out. It was his metallic soon-to-be electro-muffin.
“Heeey, R.T., I was just thinking about you.”
“Brin—all gone to shit!” her voice blitzed in and out.
“No, man. It’s all good.” He needed her to be cool for just a little longer. “I’ll tell you all about it real soon.”
“–not, all good at all. There’s—everywhere, and—in the Infi-Net. In the Infi-Net.” She stopped, presumably reaching her thesis.
Brin nervously checked his countdown. “Yeah, that’s… listen, just wait a minute. It’ll all become clear.”
“No, Brin, that’s not the worst of it.” R.T. fiddled with some knobs off screen and came in slightly more clearly.
His grin faded, he really didn’t need this harshing his mellow. “What’s the worst of it, then, man?”
“The Infi-Net—been hacked, by—ds!”
His smile was gone completely. “Say again?”
“It’s Kendra!” R.T. shouted over the garble. “Kendra Shields has hacked the Infi-Net!”
