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  Dead Man's Resolution

  A "Digital Sea" and "Gamers" Short Story

  By

  Thomas K. Carpenter

  Copyright Information

  Dead Man's Resolution

  Copyright © 2012 by Thomas K. Carpenter

  Published by Black Moon Books

  www.blackmoonbooks.com

  Cover Design Copyright © Rachel J. Carpenter

  © RIRFStock | Dreamstime.com

  © Algol | Dreamstime.com

  © Kwest - Fotolia.com

  Discover other titles by this author on:

  www.thomaskcarpenter.com

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Dead Man's Resolution

  Copyright

  About the Author

  Sample: The Digital Sea

  Sample: Gamers

  Start Reading Now

  Dead Man's Resolution

  Tibor had two more days until high school resumed from spring break, but as sword-mage of the Destaria, he had a score to settle first.

  Light from the silver sky filtered around him like a haze while three fat moons calmly hung above. He paused as the massive volcano on the biggest moon, Sarpharian, shot a jet of lava spaceward like a pimple exploding on its red surface. Ignoring the distraction of the beautifully rendered landscape, he spun around, hoping his enemy hadn’t snuck upon him while he gazed skyward. As he scanned the surrounding area, Tibor saw the leg sticking out of the old dumpster like a discarded doll, except this one had dried blood covering the tattered boot.

  Momentarily forgetting his duel, Tibor trotted to the dumpster. The body, a middle-aged man in an azure jogging suit, lay stiffly over the old rubble. A jagged piece of steel stuck through the hip.

  The stench overcame Tibor and he dropped back down, coughing into the crook of his elbow. The air around him exploded in fire, the flames licking over the dumpster. The view screen on his shades flashed red and a skull covering his vision indicated he had died.

  A man in red trimmed velvet black robes with a shaggy gray beard ran toward him, pointing and laughing. Tibor had lost the game.

  “You low-rez whore, I wasted you. Never saw me coming, I told you today was my day,” William said. The wrinkled face split wide in a grin.

  “I was distracted…” Tibor started.

  William cut in. “Oh, that is so vag if you try to take my win. I told you I was going to beat you today.”

  “There’s a body…” he tried to explain.

  William continued to bluster about being cheated, so Tibor waited until his friend had to take a breath, then rushed, “There’s a real body in the dumpster.”

  “God. The smell.” William put his hand to his mouth through his digital beard.

  “It’s not so bad after the first whiff,” Tibor said.

  William walked a few steps away and retched. “How can you stand so close?”

  “I’m turning it off.”

  With a thought, using the neural actuator, Tibor switched off the mod Project Gandaymede, and the world around them changed in a blink. Gone was the silver sky, the three moons, the black robes, and the beard on William. Tibor had chosen simpler clothes, faded brown leggings and a gray tunic with a bastard sword strapped over his back, but those were gone, too. The skull and the flashing red disappeared as well.

  Instead two young boys in jeans, t-shirts, and black wrap-around goggles suctioned to their faces, stood on the street. Tibor pulled his shirt over his nose. “If I’m going to be a vet, I’d better learn to get used to bad smells.”

  He vaulted into the dumpster, one leg over, carefully avoiding the chunks of rusted steel poking from the rubble at indiscriminate angles.

  “What are you doing?” William asked. “We should get out of here before someone comes along and blames us.” William kept his distance from the dumpster as if the smell created a barrier he couldn’t pass.

  “I just want to check him out.” Tibor found a piece of two-by-four and used it to move the leg out of the way.

  “Are you crazy? We’re not supposed to be here. Our parents would kill us just for being in Old Detroit. And a body? Forget it. They’d put us on lock down, make us delete Project Gandaymede, and no more skins. I can’t go out without my skin on, I’ve got this huge zit everyone would see. Come on, Ti, get out of there.”

  William put a hand to the throbbing red spot on his forehead. Tibor was reminded of the moon, Sarpharian, and wondered if William had programmed the volcano unconsciously. The zit disappeared as a digital version of William covered the real one.

  “If I take my glasses off, I can still see the zit,” he laughed.

  “Shut up, Tibor.”

  The four story building next to the dumpster had brown ivy covering the wall. Cracks ran the length of the building. Tibor thought he could knock the whole thing over with a breath.

  “He must have fell from up there.” Tibor pointed to the roof. “But why?”

  “Total outworlder, I bet. Lost in his fantasy land and didn’t know he was walking off the roof,” William surmised.

  “You know outworlders don’t take chances. That’s the whole point of being an outworlder. Life is easy because you control everything. It’s like Nadia. I heard her family uses a random room generator so every time they go into their living room it looks like a different celebrity’s.”

  Tibor wedged the board under the dead man, leaning in to flip him over. The body broke loose from a piece of a construction rebar making a sickening thump as it flopped.

  “You’ve got to see this.”

  William moved forward lured by Tibor’s words. “His brains ooze out his ears or something?”

  “Even weirder. No shades or hip pouch, and there’s a wire sticking out of his neck.”

  “Then he can’t be an outworlder. No shades, no ARNet computer, no Digital Sea,” William said.

  Tibor knelt in the rubble, his left knee crushing the man’s arm, but he didn’t think he’d mind. He reached out to touch the man’s face. It made him uneasy, but if he wanted to be a vet, he’d have to get over his fears. Pulling back the dead man’s eyelids revealed a black disc surrounded by white. Instead of shades worn over the eyes, he had them on his cornea.

  “William, get in here,” Tibor yelled.

  “But it stinks.”

  Tibor sighed. “Cover your nose, but get in here. I want to show you something.”

  When William finally got the nerve to get into the dumpster, Tibor showed him the man’s eyes. The revelation hid the smell and the fact they were touching a body.

  “I’d heard it was possible, but I didn’t think anyone would do it. You could never escape the Sea,” William said.

  “Maybe he’s a government agent?” Tibor wondered. “The computer’s been sewn into his hip and even his neural actuator is embedded. The computer got damaged when he landed, you can see part of it sticking out of his back.”

  “He can swim and sleep in the Sea,” William said. “What a vag to be wearing it all the time.”

  “Why not? I only take mine off to sleep,” Tibor replied.

  William poked the body with his foot. “What if you could modify your dreams using it?”

  “What’s the point? If you can modify reality, then why bother with your dreams?”

  “Just asking.” William paused, staring at the body covered in dried blood. He whispered, “I’m ready to go now. This body’s starting to creep me out, and it’s getting dark.”

  “I want to take his computer,” Tibor said suddenly.

  William recoiled from him. “Are you crazy? You’d have to cut into
him.”

  “Come on. I’m bored. We can take it home and get the chip out and find out what this guy was doing. I want to know why he died.”

  “What if he didn’t die? What if he was killed?” William sat on the rubble adjusting the kinetic energy collector on his knee.

  “I bet it's total high-rez gear. Maybe you can get an edge for your digitronics class. Impressing Mr. Moraine would mean an A for sure.”

  Tibor knew what buttons to push with his best friend. William loved to take things apart and put them back together again. Whenever Tibor had taken apart old computers or electronics, he was left with a pile of parts that didn’t work.

  “Okay. But I’m not cutting anything,” William said.

  “Help me turn him over.”

  Once they exposed the black box in the man’s back, Tibor pulled out his pocket knife.

  He touched the blade to the skin, holding his breath expecting the dead man to jump. But as the blade sunk in and he didn’t move, he released his breath. Flaps of skin peeled back revealing a black box smaller than the palm of his hand, smashed on one side with wires severed and bits of electronics leaking out. Tibor found a stained rag nearby and pulled the box from the skin. It made a sickening suction sound as it pulled loose. He used the rag to clean it before he shoved it into his pocket.

  “Let’s go home,” Tibor said.

  They found their electroscooters behind a bush that had grown through the broken concrete.

  William spoke up, “Are you sure we should take that computer? I don’t think we want anything to tie us to that body. They could check the digital records to find we were in the area. The satellites redigitize everything about once a week. What if they make a pass while we’re standing here?” William looked at the sky as if he might be able to see a satellite through the cloud layer. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  “The chances of a satellite scanning our area right now is null. And I don’t think this guy cares if we take it.”

  “I care. We’re going to graduate soon and I don’t want anything to screw up my scholarships,” William whispered almost too quiet for Tibor to hear.

  “We can’t get in that much trouble. The guy’s dead, right?”

  William kicked a sooty bottle across the pavement. “You don’t ever get in trouble because your dad’s never home.” The bottle ended its spin at Tibor’s feet.

  “I don’t get in any trouble because my Mom’s dead,” Tibor’s voice cracked. He swooped up the bottle and launched it against the wall, the shards of glass scattering like tiny jewels.

  A long silence hung between them before William finally spoke, “I’m sorry. Of course, I’ll help you.”

  William attempted to give his friend a reassuring smile, but it died beneath Tibor’s blank stare. William left on his electrobike.

  A pink corona filtered through the gray haze near the horizon. Tibor wiped a tear from his eye and got on his bike. They’d have to hurry to get home before dark. Tibor thought about his outburst and considered throwing the computer into the bushes, but he didn’t and followed the red tail light of William’s bike into the dusk.

  #

  The two friends milled around school until the halls were empty. They'd agreed to meet when classes were done so they could use the high-tech computer lab.

  Tibor dropped a few mods in the local systems allowing him tracking access to anyone in the school. Another mod camouflaged their information so they looked like a couple of janitoral workers. Hacking geocodes wouldn’t just get him suspended, the Buffet High security-Nazis would notify the local authorities and given his father’s business, he’d be banned from all technology until he was out of the house. But he had to know what was in that ARNet.

  Tibor walked calmly down the center of the hallway, while William crept along the side.

  Tibor told him with a mind-text.

  Tibor had “borrowed” a mod from his dad’s system that allowed non-verbal communication through a private undetectable channel, at least by the school’s level of security. The neural actuators picked up the shape of their thoughts, converted them into commands, or words, which could be sent across the Digital Sea to be heard in the earpieces at the end of their shades. One advantage of having a father who owned a cryptology company subcontracted to the government.

  William jammed his hands in his pockets and skulked up to Tibor. Strangely, Tibor didn’t feel any of the apprehension that resonated from William.

  When they reached the digitronics lab, the locks on the door melted away as Tibor injected his program. Once inside he pulled the little box out of his backpack and gave it to William.

  As soon as the box was in his friend’s hands, the bunched muscles in his forehead melted away. William set to work immediately.

  It wasn’t long until the cover of the black box lay on its back. William deftly maneuvered through the circuits under the magnifier.

  “Careful, don’t fry that chip,” Tibor said, leaning over William at the lab table as he dissected the innards.

  “You’re crowding me.”

  “Sorry.”

  Tibor paced around the room as if he were an expectant father.

  After a few minutes, William said, “I got the chip out. You wouldn’t believe the architecture. I think it’s a zetta-byte. A rocket ship compared to our scooters.”

  “I told you it would be worth it. Now we need to figure out what’s on it,” Tibor said.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  “Why else would you take it apart?”

  “I wanted to see if I could do it. Good thing I actually pay attention in class.”

  Tibor slid the extra ARNet he’d brought across the table. “Now we need to hook it up. Think you can do that, too?”

  “Why are you so determined to see what’s on this chip?” William asked.

  “Dunno. Bored, I guess. School is meaningless. They only teach us how to access information in the Sea. So what’s the point? I don’t need to waste my time sitting in school if there are better things to learn. Maybe this chip will have his underwear schedule on it, or it won’t. I just want to see what’s on it.”

  William stared hard at his friend, and then shook his head. “Let me see if I can get it to work.”

  Tibor sat nearby watching William meticulously install the zetta-byte chip. After an hour, he announced the job was complete and connected Tibor to an auxiliary cable.

  “Let’s give this bad boy a whirl,” Tibor said as he turned it on. Names of mods scrolled past as they ran through the boot cycle: Mr. Plow, Portal, BlackTome, Carbonite, Somania, Bang, 345Nodice, A5Files…

  The list, in order of memory usage, totaled about twenty mods, of which Tibor recognized only a handful. Mr. Plow, which had immediately gone active, ate a few hundred petabytes which was more than Tibor’s whole system.

  “Anything?” William asked.

  “Got some heavies in here. Real blade work. Not sure what they do.”

  “Well you shouldn’t mess with them. Now that you’ve seen it, you ought to turn it off. We’ve been here too long.”

  “Don’t worry. I just want to look at a few. Portal looks interesting.”

  Before his friend could talk him out of it, he triggered the mod. A globe appeared at his fingertips. He spun it, putting his finger out to land in China near Shanghai.

  Suddenly, the view screen on his goggles went black and a brilliant swirling tunnel formed, sucking him down. The transition graphics made him lurch against the table next to him. He wished he’d been sitting.

  The world drew in around him, and though he could still feel the table under his hand, he also stood on a wide street. Tibor cringed as a car sped through his projection. He nearly lost his balance back in the lab.

  He tried to take a step forward, but realized he’d moved his legs back in Michigan while his projection had stayed in the same place. Another car burst through him as he searched his HUI. A small cross with ar
rows on each end blinked in the bottom left corner of his vision. Tibor concentrated on the top one and his projection walked forward to the sidewalk.

  The streets teemed with a crowd looking like a cross between a costume party and a comic book. Back in northern Michigan, no one strayed far from the accepted norm. Shanghai embraced the possibilities of the Digital Sea with a fervor. A woman with peacock frills extending out of her rear strutted past him. Capes, cloaks, halos, wings, fur, light and any imagined accessory—and some were things he’d never imagined—adorned the people on the street. They didn’t just wear their skins, they were moving art ensembles. A lady covered in leopard fur walked through him as she searched her handbag.

  Tibor moved to the edge of the sidewalk. The translucent body beneath him moved in a life-like manner.

  The center of his movement pad blinked rapidly, so he activated it. He thought nothing had happened until a few people turned their heads toward him. His body had lost its ethereal quality and now seemed substantial in appearance.

  He wasn’t completely sure, so he lunged at a group of Indian women in their colorful saris. They swerved around him, but kept their heads focused forward as they tittered like birds on private channels.

  As he paused at an intersection, a giant woman appeared, flooding his vision as an ad-tag.

  The Chinese woman wore a traditional red silk dress and a flower in her hair. “Greetings traveler. The magnificent company Ecoverse would like to offer you, our most valued customer, this special deal as you wait for the 1337 bus. Are you worried about the effect your pet is having on the environment? Can you not afford Fluffy’s food anymore? Is your favorite pet dead? ForeverPet can solve all of these problems and more. A ForeverPet will never get on the furniture or chew your favorite shoes, unless you want it too. Take this marker if you would like to learn more about ForeverPet or any other Ecoverse products. Remember the Ecoverse motto, Conservation through Digitization.”

  Tibor left Shanghai when he felt a hand on his shoulder back in Michigan. He released the mod and the vision faded away to the school lab. The sudden change gave him vertigo.

  “What did you see? You just stood there with a blank look on your face, swaying against the table.”