Snippets From The Spiralverse Part II

Genre: Cyberpunk, short story, Simulation

Part II

Spiral Dive

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I remember my first spiral dive. My mother was there. We were holding hands, each of us looking over the lip of the Funnel. Outside the silver halo of safe, prodigal commerce was the infinite lattice of rainbow colors, burning like tinted glass in the digital expanse of forever. At the innermost terminus of the Funnel, the silver band slopes, shearing quickly, emptying into a titanic drop-off of blues and greens, yellow and white. A long, long road of light. The kind of bright that gives the unshaded eye a case of the squints. This leads to the Spiral. And in order to reach it–

“You have to dive.” 

Those were her words. 

I was nine-years-old.

My father would have thrown me over the lip, showing me that there was nothing to fear from the fall. The way a father often teaches a child to swim; the deep end. But my mother, she came around to face me, to bring herself between her daughter and the fall. She wrapped her arms around me. 

“Ready?”

“I think so.” My heart thundered at the prospect. 

And slowly, so slowly, hugging me close, she fell back, taking me with her. We fell together. She was laughing. Blonde tassels of her long, curly hair fluttering all around us. And then, when I was brave enough to open my eyes to the radiant light of the drop, holding my hand, she opened her hips away from me and we pitched headlong, down the curving gravity that swirls you around and around in a long, invisible slide through a quality of light that the Real cannot reproduce. And in that flight together, hand-in-hand, she educated me in a way only a woman can. 

My mother taught me how to be fearless without ever making me afraid.

Most people live their whole lives never having the courage to spiral dive. Many of them wonder, “Why would I?” The Funnel has everything my avatar could want. Clothes. Gear. Toys. Gathering places for all the social requirements the human psyche longs to know. The Funnel’s ring is wide and it is long; its halo holds places of worship where no person is harassed by ancient feuds or differences of opinion, palaces built by programmers and digital architects filled with the reproduced masterpieces of Earth’s greatest artists and sculptors. And set at the edge of this ring, a great belt of green, whole digital forests with trees so tall and vast and familiar that one might spend a lifetime of losing oneself and never once feel lost. 

And this is the great accomplishment of the Funnel. That while it is in no way a real place, it is, at its very core, a true place. It soothes every pain that the Real puts upon a person.

There is a saying, old as Earth’s New Armistice Day, that the Funnel is for everyone.

The Spiral though?

The Spiral is for Theseus types. 

People who, for whatever innate reason, have a desire for conflict and accomplishment running in their blood. People who see the halo for all its grandeur and perfection, but then, upon seeing the lip that falls into the spiral, find they cannot help but jump. It’s for players who beat the LEVIATHAN test and get drafted into the League. For the stout-hearted, adventuring  thrill-seekers who are willing to ‘walk the knife’. 

At the age of nine, I was a Funnel person, an everyone. Wholly complacent in what I saw offered by the halo ring. 

My mother though, she showed me what it meant to be a Theseus type. And when we fell through the prismatic score of color and came to land gentle as doves on the neon of the Spiral’s floor, I became something else entirely.

Sid Law, lancer for the Zealand Roarers, he was that kind of person, too. A leaguer who was drawn over the halo, into a life of wealth and fame, risk and chance. Whatever chance he took, it got him vanished in the E-district. For most people that would be it. Fin. The last word in a story few would ever read. 

This is not how it is for those drafted by the League.

Players in the League are the hottest goddamn commodity in the digital realm. The top one percent of the one percent, who play the most important game in the world. It is easier to pick out of a Nielsen Report those who do not watch the League than those that do. Billions watch every time the broadcast flashes the words that have become so important almost every human heart that beats in the Real with eyes transfixed in the Spiral:

Start.

New.

Game.

The League is the League because it is the only digital game that is played for keeps. When you die in a League game you do not lose an avatar. 

You lose your life.

The League is the last refuge of human barbarism in a world that has disabused itself of martial conflict. It covets talent, and almost every single person that finds themselves in the burning hues of the gaming promenade of the E-district is there, day in and day out, trying to get drafted. It’s easy to see why the Roarers want Sid back, because players like Sid are the crème de la crème of the heroic-hearted. To call them valuable is to call the Sistine Chapel just another church. Pavarotti’s Nessun Dorma just a song. These players are, every one of them, unique irreproducible marvels of human capability.

And Sid was more lucky than he knew, if he was alive that is, because if it hadn’t been for my mother, teaching me to be fearless, Sid Law might have been up shit’s creek without a paddle, boat, or compass. He might have been a miracle gamer making millions of marks playing for the Roarers, but he was also missing in the Spiral. And it takes someone like me to find a genuine miracle in a place filled with ten million counterfeit ones.

Sophie Montrose, as courageous a Theseus as the hero who first bore the name, all because of a woman who first showed her how to be brave. 

So, I left Mackie behind, took myself to the lip of the halo. And, winking at a little boy overlooking the plunge with fear in his eyes, I stepped off the halo and rode the long, winding light line to the E-district.

Falling. 

Falling into light, I re-skinned.

My tight shawl flashed into a long white trench coat, and the little-white-dress, tight as plastic wrap, unzips into a gray, three-piece. The white silk tie flashes out of nothing, catches wind that does not exist, flapping like a fighter pilot’s scarf behind me. The hair and the eyes, they stay the same. Always. I have a reputation. I’m not the mother fucker, but that sure as fuck doesn’t mean that I’m nobody. I’ve got push and pull in the Spiral. Some people I can maneuver like pieces on a chess board. You don’t build that kind of reputation by being a chameleon. You get it by being sweet as sugar with forlorn emotional diabetics and hard as nails with the war chiefs. Those you can’t push have a lever, the key is knowing when to pull and when to leave it well-enough alone.

I landed on streets of the entertainment fiefdom of Rick the Brick and gave it a scan. The Funnel’s halo is all tranquility and docility for the sake of global sanity, with its polished silver and gold trim storefronts. Replete with weeping vistas. Trees for days, swaying in an algorithmic wind programmed to be cool and fresh as the other side of the pillow.

The Spiral is not here for any of that 38th Dalai Lama shit. Pink sidewalks, hot as a pair of fuck me pumps. Flashing cursive letters of gold and green, purple and white flashing on signs so black they swallow anything not neon; every color found in the burning life of a star until it goes supernova. There’s arcades all over the goddamn place, each of them trying to differentiate themselves with branding, promises of ‘professional development’, and sales, they swear up and down, are a once in a lifetime deal. The arcades are filled with games and avatars of the brooding millions hoping to make the League. There’s trillion upon trillions of marks swimming through this economy. New arcades pop-up every day, and only one has ever gone out of business.

The Double-A Training Emporium, which just happens to be across the street from where I touch down. Half historic monument, half a crime scene, it’s the place where Johnny Mac flipped the script on MINOTAUR. The place where shit got more real in the Spiral than it was ever supposed to get. Surrounding its darkened windows still people saunter by to give it a look over, pay respects by leaving flowers for the murdered AI program, or leave flair tokens respecting what Johnny did to the game that royally fucked him out of a mother.

That’s the nature of the Spiral. Nature of the game.

Shouldering through the teaming crowd like a salmon swimming upstream to spawn, I made my way to the Cosmo Black. Rick the Brick owns all these places, but the Cosmo is where I’d be able to make the kind of statement that would get Rick’s attention pronto. I didn’t have time to fuck around with cadets or Rick’s lower-level grunts.

When you want to get a mother fucker’s attention, you stand up so they can see you.

When you want to get the mother fucker’s attention, you piss on his home turf and let him catch the scent.

The Cosmo is a high-roller joint. The avatars filling that place up are all primo. Avatars that you don’t buy with marks. Can’t. Mackie, for instance, paid a high price for the movie star amalgam he sported, but the kind of skins you find in a place like the Cosmo are worn by folks who don’t ask themselves if they should buy a yacht, they wonder how many they should buy that day and if they should all share the same paint job. These are not the rich people. These are the wealthy. Special avatars come with special cosmetic privileges. Cartoon characters, perfect reproductions of long-dead historical figures. Want to wear Humphrey Bogart’s overlay from Casablanca? Shit, rolling in a Bogie is the new mid-life crisis purchase for the affluent. Nothing special there. There are about fifty Darth Vaders, but only one of them is Vader in white armor. Guy even has a blue lightsaber to wrap the whole outfit up in a bow. No one knows who that fucking nerd is, but what we know is that his avatar is one of a kind and only influence gets you that.  

The first guy I see head into the Cosmo, walking right past a line of wanton gamers waiting their turn in the rope line, is a fucking, upright walking Panda absolutely crushing it in a powder blue tuxedo. The doorman doesn’t even blink. Calls the fella by name, which from that distance even I can’t hear, takes the bear’s top hat, and welcomes him inside.

I get it.

Somedays, you just wanna be a dapper as hell panda bear and slug drinks while swashbuckling your way through the ever popular steampunk-themed Sky King Rachel. Also, the feeling of polyester on that fur I’m guessing is absolutely divine. Then again, for me, tactility is the queen that sits on my heart’s throne. And speaking of royalty and opulence: Cosmo Black itself is refined luxury. White letters, burning bright as the full moon. Tuxedo black walls smooth and slick as block of ice. I walked up to the velvet rope, unclipped it, and let the wedding-white rope slap against the onyx post with metallic announcement.

A sour-faced prick in line with an ugly boyfriend, hugging him so close he might have metastasized to his beau’s hip pocket gives me shit. “Hey! Get in line.”

“Shut the fuck up,” I said, tossing a middle finger over my shoulder.

The doorman turned back to see the ruckus. Blue top hat still pinched between two fingers on a set of absolute vice grips he’s got for hands. Tall, broad, and brown-skinned, this knuckle-dragger was an oak tree wearing a suit.

He’s professional though, polite and insistent. “Hey, Gorgeous,” he says, putting up a palm big as a yield sign. “You’ll need to step back in li–”

Was about as far as he got before I snatched the tops of his fingers, twisted them over, and then drove my fist up into the junction between his wrist and forearm. The hand came lose, the arm going limp as a tube sock filled with wet oatmeal. He was hired muscle though, which meant there’s pain dampers running down his spine in the Real. Any person would be silly to hire muscle that comes to heel the moment they’re hurt.

He looks at the arm, more annoyed than anything else.

Then, he looks at me.

I wink at him. “Looking for a dance partner?”

“I haven’t even had my fucking lunch break yet,” he says, shaking his head. He decides to throw hands, wildly slinging a haymaker uppercut designed to rocket me into the nearest star system.

Big fellas love the uppercut. Makes a fighter feel like an old pugilist winning the Heavyweight Belt with bulbs snapping all around them, capturing the purity of the frozen-in-time black and white photographs that’ll end up plastered on the walls inside classic Manhattan clone steakhouse restaurants.

Great thing about an uppercut is that one only needs to pivot less than a fist’s width to render it completely useless. His punch cuts through the air, and I feel of the wind of it slicing through my blonde hair. The heat of his skin against my cheek. 

And then, there’s the big follow-up. After the strike-out whiff of an uppercut, no big puncher alive can resist turning on their hip and slicing a waylaying hook. Probably because that combination feels strong. Feels right. Peanut butter and jelly right. 98.9 percent of the time it’s the blow that turns the knees to water and the upper body into Frankenstein with the Fencing Response. Lights out. And respect to him, considering he throws it with a hand that’s already mangled. Lemonade out of lemons, glass-half-full kinda fighter. 

I ducked under the reaper’s scythe and swung my open hand toward the wide gap of his twisting hips. My palm curls around against his peaches, squeezing. And before he can say, “Please don’t ruin my life,” I show him how strong my grip is.

Pain dampers, sure. Pleasure dampers? No human alive is going to have those active in the Spiral.

The crowd in the Cosmo line, who are now just realizing what is happening, groan when I get a hold of him.  

His knees buckle. Then, there’s the groaning and the moaning. At that moment, I have won. But I’m not here to win a fight. I’m here to make a herald my arrival.

I twist and pull.

It’s all digital, but wherever this dickhead is jacked in, he’s howling in the Real.

The doorman goes to his knees and I bend at the waist to follow him down.

The wind that he sucks through his teeth is a sound that shrivels the balls of every man in line. 

For me, it’s goosebumps.

“Are you fucking crazy, you bitch,” he bellowed, his face a contorted waterfall of deep wrinkles. “You know who owns this place?”

“Sure do,” I said. “I’m gonna head on inside. Tell Rick I’ll be waiting in the VIP with his three buddies.” 

His mask of pain blooms into a look of absolute incomprehension.

“No rush,” I said. “Oh, and be a doll, would you?” I nodded toward the door and squeezed a little tighter.

Yelping, he obeys, opening the door for me like a proper gentleman.

I let him go, and give those bruised nuts a little flick of a love tap.

The door swings shut behind me. I grab a cig, tilt my head, flare it to life, and breath the fire out of my lungs.

 The Cosmo roars with a bang-whip-crack beat so heavy it shakes me skull to heel, a jungle of streaking lights and smoke, shadows and apex predators with languid gazes leaning from killing eyes. Ceiling, walls, floor, it’s all black steel slick as ice. Walls of spotless glass partition the layout, making it clear that this place isn’t the place you go to for privacy. 

This is the place where you go to be seen.

It takes about five steps before I’m met by a cavalcade of knuckle-dragging bouncers who’ve probably been alerted to what I did to the rope line bro.

“Welcome to the Cosmo,” the lead ape says, trying to look clean and official with a neck eight sizes too big for the skinny-ass tie looped around his collar. He’s bookended on both sides by two pals in the same garb, likely none of them aware that I’ll turn those ties into a fucking noose if they decided on violence.

“Thanks. Nice place. Get Rick,” I said, because who’s got the time to fuck around.

The man smiles, teeth shark-white, shark-sharp too. “Mr. Tatterdemalion is occupied and doesn’t take lightly to–”

“You’re preaching to the converted, pumpkin. I know he’s probably got a team in the Real head hunting. I’m Sophie Montrose. My address is 88 Lawhead Street in Palisade, New York. Access code to the place is 9-1-1 to make it easy. So before he decides to royally fuck-up my life like those three zombified dipshits in the corner over there, you’ll want to let him know that I’m here looking for a Leaguer who went missing in this establishment nary a short while ago. Your friend wouldn’t let me in, so I let myself in because he didn’t give me a chance to explain. I’m not here to shit on Rick’s turf, I’m doing him a fucking favor before he owes me.”

  King Kong, monkey-suit and all, just stared at me. One of his buddies stamps a fist into a palm, cracking his knuckles.

I wink at him, take a drag, and wait.

“Leaguer’s name?” asks the lead fella.

“Mr. Bob Go-Fuck-Yourself. I either talk to Rick or Rick talks to the authorities when the leaguer turns up dead in the e-district,” I said.

The knuckle-cracker piped up, “This bitch–”

“Is all your nightmares wrapped-up in a suit,” I said, finishing for him. Letting him know. Now, could I have taken all three of them in a straight-up fight? Probably not. But it was a bull and horns situation. And fuck him for calling me a bitch.

He bobbed with a humorless laugh, thinking about all the horrible, mean, no-good things he wanted to inflict on me.

If talk went to tussle I decided, his friends might get me in a rush, but not before I gelded that steer.

Luckily for him and probably for me too, the leader of the pack said, “Mr. Tatterdemalion invites you to wait over there.” He hooked a thumb to an empty booth at the back end of the throbbing club.

“Lucky you,” Knuckle-cracker said.

I turned and lifted a middle finger over my shoulder. “Suck my dick, rent-a-cunt.”