Where Futures End Read online

  “Huh, really?” Olly peered at him but quickly lost interest. “Two other guys. You’re paying to be the third guy in line.” He laughed into his sleeve.

  Reef’s annoyance turned to anger. “You know prostitutes aren’t monogamous, right?”

  “Look, as much as I love spying on your boyfriends, there’s an Ice Giant at the bus station I’d like to introduce to my new sledgehammer.”

  “Fine. See you later.”

  Reef’s gaze went back to the tiny blue glove the girl had dropped. The caption on those government posters kept popping into his head: Daughters Bring Joy. The girl licked the two suckers in turns, yellow orange yellow orange.

  Reef slunk away from the maze of containers and scooped up the glove, held it out while he slow-stepped toward the girl. Her eyes were the wide-set eyes of her mother, round now in consternation. Daughters Bring Joy. He wondered how her eyes looked when she was laughing.

  A hand slammed down on his wrist, and the next moment Aedric had Reef’s arm twisted behind his back, his face pressed against the pebbled wall of the building.

  “I’m Reef!” he blurted.

  “Who?”

  Pain spiked from Reef’s elbow to his wrist. “Reef.” He held up his other arm so Aedric could see the bracelet with Cadence’s name on it.

  Aedric let go. Reef turned reluctantly to face him and saw that Olly hadn’t left after all. Aedric saw too. “This your friend?” he asked Reef, smiling as if at some secret joke. Olly took a step closer, sizing up Aedric like he could do anything.

  “Yeah,” Reef said. He hoped Olly had dismissed the ridiculous glowing owl.

  Aedric’s face was the flat, ordinary face of any other west-coaster. Skin Seattle-pale, but race impossible to discern. He scrutinized Reef’s tattered clothes, the goggles around his neck. His smug smile grew. “You’re going to get her the visas she wants? Enough for all of us?”

  “If I could get a visa, I wouldn’t be living here.”

  “So that’s a no? Good. If you had said yes, I would have known you were a fraud.”

  The little girl watched this all with fascination. She stared openly at Olly’s goggle-eyes. Reef handed her the dropped glove and she accepted it cautiously.

  A ping sounded from Reef’s goggles and he glanced down at the lenses to find that Aedric had messaged him. The intrusion brought his simmering anger to a boil.

  “This is a list of Alt items I’m keeping an eye out for,” Aedric said. “I’ve got some clients on the isle who’ll pay big for these, so put yourself to good use.”

  Reef gritted his teeth. But there was no way he was going to fight a guy with a stronger vorpal. And he couldn’t in front of the girl anyway. She was still staring at Olly’s goggles. She held a round sucker up over each of her eyes and peered out at him.

  “You’re at level three hundred?” Aedric asked Reef.

  “Three oh one,” Olly said for him. “How about you?”

  Aedric shrugged, dismissing the challenge in Olly’s tone. “I don’t have much time for games.”

  Reef didn’t believe him. The goggles sticking out of Aedric’s jacket pocket weren’t the slim design most people chose. They were big, powerful. Built for gaming.

  Aedric followed his gaze and shoved the goggles deeper into his pocket. “I help my clients level their characters sometimes.”

  “You ever figure out the Fated Blade quest?” Olly asked.

  Reef shot him a look that said Are you serious? But then he noticed that Aedric’s alien friend had perked up and was waiting for Olly to say more.

  “Can’t say I’ve run into that one,” Aedric answered.

  “Ask him,” Reef said, nodding at the alien.

  Aedric studied Reef for a moment. Then he turned to the alien and said something in his language. The alien didn’t reply. Just moved his gaze from Olly to Reef.

  Aedric shrugged. “I guess that’s your answer.” He flicked Reef’s goggles. “Keep in touch.” He walked away. The maze of containers swallowed him up, the alien following, the little girl last of all, waving one blue glove at Reef like an old-world royal waving a hankie.

  A burst of curiosity hit Reef, something to do with the Fated Blade and Aedric’s alien friend. But Reef couldn’t tell if it was his own feeling or someone else’s, pressed upon him by a vorpal.

  Reaching level 301 gave Reef access to places he’d only read about in forums. The holographic caverns in Pike Place Market, where he fought off crystal-fanged Dark Elves while maneuvering around the crowded stalls. An enchanted glade inside the public records hall, where he safely sealed up his stock of blood rubies to be harvested later for a potion. Even the sage’s warren in the old monorail, where he looked out and took furious notes on the marked locations of rare items hidden all over the city.

  He sold weapons and spells and information. He sent Cadence her twenty percent.

  She had only minutes at a time to give to him—while she ran out for an order of fish and chips, or collected some package or other from Aedric’s contacts. Once they met at the harbor, where Reef had to keep scowling patrol men at bay by flashing the bracelet that said he had a right to be with the girl next to him. And then Cadence had to return home anyway, and Reef was left alone to gaze out at the sleek residences on the Floating Isle, yet another world he’d never be given entry to.

  One morning, Reef thought she’d finally come to his container, but it was only Olly.

  “Want to run an instance on the waterfront carousel?” Olly asked, tossing an apple to Reef after he opened the door. “Should be able to pick up a Dogsbreath Spell.”

  Reef pocketed the apple and jammed his feet into a pair of grubby sneakers. “I’ve got to finish a quest that expires in a few hours. It’s all the way uptown.”

  “Yeah, I figured you’d be too busy picking up higher level loot.”

  Guilt gnawed at Reef. He hadn’t gone questing with Olly since he’d hit level 301. He took a couple of food tickets from under the mattress and held them out to Olly.

  Olly let out a snort. “Keep it. You don’t need to pay me off.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Where’s all your money going?” Olly grimaced at Reef’s disintegrating shoes. “You giving it all to that girl?”

  “Not all of it,” Reef mumbled, pulling on his jacket. “Twenty percent. Sometimes extra if she needs—”

  Something fell from his pocket and hit the floor with a thud.

  Olly stared for a moment at the gray brick of resin while blood pounded in Reef’s ears. “I guess it’d be a waste to get past level three hundred and not get high while you play,” Olly said darkly.

  Reef’s face burned. “I didn’t mean to—I suddenly had all this money—” He snatched up the brick from the floor and jammed it into his pocket. “I’m an idiot.”

  “Don’t expect me to argue.”

  Reef squeezed his eyes shut. It had been stupid to buy so much. But he’d had the money in his account, and then suddenly he was buying enough resin to feel what he had once felt, to escape into Alt with his senses turned up high.

  “I’m gonna go,” Olly said. “Let me know if you want to run an instance sometime. Free of charge, okay?” He turned and let the door slam shut behind him.

  Reef took his goggles down from their hook, frustration and shame welling inside him. A message from Cadence flashed on the lens piece. She had wanted to meet at a nearby park but was gone now. His frustration grew. He sent a message back: This is crazy. Isn’t there some time when Aedric won’t notice you’re gone?

  A few minutes later her reply came: Tonight. There’s a quest he’s been wanting to do that doesn’t show up until after nine. I’ll remind him.

  Around nine thirty, Reef showed up at a building across the street from the Roosevelt Hotel, where he and Olly had met the sphinx. He pull
ed out his tin. It was full, the thin gray sticks packed in tightly together. Reef knew his stomach wouldn’t stop wrenching and lurching until he gave in. He took out a stick, glared at it before biting down. He was up to a twice-daily dose now and he couldn’t go back.

  He knocked on the door of the building. There was no sign, no window front. Cadence had told him only about a gray-painted door next to a noodle place. The door opened, and someone squinted at him before leading him down a hallway to a lounge lit by thousands of tiny bulbs embedded in a map of Great China that wrapped around the room. The provinces were outlined in a thin, glowing line, including the constantly shifting European holding and an uncertain chunk carved out of Africa.

  Cadence smiled at him from a couch, an open, easy smile he’d never seen on her. Reef felt several pairs of eyes on him as he walked over. He’d never seen so many girls all in one place, in tank tops and T-shirts instead of bulky jackets. He let his metal bracelet slide down over his hand so everyone could see it, so the guys glaring at him would know Cadence was his wife now.

  “You didn’t bring your goggles,” Cadence said. She’d shed her usual oversized jacket and looked almost bare in a thin T-shirt and jeans.

  “No, I didn’t.” He’d had some inflated idea about her seeing him without his goggles and taking him more seriously, so he’d left them with Olly. But Cadence’s own slim pair was around her neck.

  He sat next to her, anxious to find out how his body would fit alongside hers. He’d only ever touched her hand, her shoulder through her jacket. Now her arm was pressed alongside his. Reef’s fingers itched at the sight of her T-shirt half tucked into the waistband of her jeans.

  “What’s with the map?” As he said it, several more lights blinked on among networks of wires trailing over the wall.

  “Do you like it? Took ages for everyone to rig up. It’s for the Troll-Kicker Leech: a light comes on every time the leech spreads to another hard drive. The leeches are forming a whole network—”

  “A botnet,” Reef said.

  She smiled again. “It’s supposed to come alive tonight and do its thing, if the command can get through to it. Not sure what it’ll do, though—do you have any idea?”

  “Probably launch a DDoS attack. Distributed Denial of Service. Basically, overwhelm a network and make things go haywire. Everything’s connected to the network these days—power grid, emergency services. Everything.” He was working hard not to grimace at the bitter remnants of resin in his mouth. If he kissed her, would she taste it? Could she smell it already? He tried to be subtle about fishing a mint out of his pocket. “One of these days we’ll even send a bomb to finish off the job.”

  She turned her face to look at the wall behind her. The tiny lights made her skin glow like some digital character. “It’s a bit morbid, isn’t it?”

  Reef shrugged. “China’s doing the same thing to us.” The mint made his mouth cold. “There’s probably some bar in Beijing where people are studying a light-up map of Mega America right now.”

  “And drinking illegally imported American beer.” She held up a bottle someone had left on the table and showed him the Chinese label.

  Reef let out a laugh. The sound of it floated to his ears through a drug-induced fog. The whole room seemed to be retreating, shrinking back from him as though he were lifting away. He felt lights blinking on inside of him the same as on the map, dark places coming to life.

  He took Cadence’s hand and pulled her up from the couch with him. She let Reef put his arm around her waist, but the slow, electronic pulse of the music didn’t lend itself to dancing. Reef stood stiffly, unsure of how to close the gap between them. He fingered the hem of her shirt where it was untucked and then he couldn’t help but pull her closer. The music throbbed in his head, in his stomach. He brushed his cheek against her hair. “Cadence . . .”

  He caught her looking toward a corner of the room and followed her gaze to find Aedric’s alien friend watching them.

  “He sent a spy?” Reef asked Cadence.

  “I think he mostly follows us around to make sure we’re safe, although most of the people here are familiar faces.” She glanced up to a loft, where Reef spotted an older woman playing with a little girl he recognized. “Once, Shasta and I went out to the harbor for the whole day and Aedric never seemed to know. Or anyway, he didn’t seem angry, even though he worries about people seeing us and figuring out we’re girls. Getting sold to a—a matchmaker or something.”

  She’d been about to say something worse, but Reef could tell she didn’t want to think about it. He measured the little girl’s tiny frame as she crouched against the railing with her toys. He rolled her name around in his mind. Shasta. Fear for her clutched at his stomach. The gruesome things that could happen to her on the streets of a city like this . . .

  “I wish I could talk to him, but I’m no good with languages,” Cadence went on, her attention on the alien again. Reef’s hand against her back was getting so heated he worried she would pull away, but she slid her palms up over his shoulders like they were dancing. His heart jostled. “Did you know that the reason they used to wear those red bracelets was so people would know they were aliens? That’s why you always see them in government posters wearing red bracelets. Even though I’ve never see one wear anything like that in real life. Aedric’s friend has one tattooed on his arm.” She frowned. “Or is it just me seeing that?”

  Reef looked to the corner of the room again and saw a band of red ink around the alien’s forearm. “No, I see it too.”

  “They can make themselves look like anything they want. Kind of like an Alt avatar.” Cadence lifted her goggles to her eyes. “Should I find out what imaginary tattoos you’ve got?”

  Reef’s hand went automatically to the digital label that showed under his chain-metal sleeve in Alt’s game world. A free add-on he’d gotten for turning leeches over to the government.

  “Leech-hunter, huh?” She lowered her goggles again. “A do-gooder.”

  He felt his face going hot. “It pays.” Sort of.

  She seemed to calculate something in her head. The price of a visa in leech bounties, maybe. She looked around at the lights coming to life on the wall. “Do you think it really does much good in the end?”

  Reef pictured the imaginary Beijing bar, the map of the American continents carved into provinces—Canada and the States and Mexico and South America. All riddled with tiny bulbs, a thousand of them lit. A million, more. “I don’t know.”

  He leaned in and pressed his face against her neck. She smelled like ozone, the clean smell after it rains. Her arms tightened around his shoulders. He kissed her lightly on the jaw, shaky with nerves. He kissed her on the mouth and kept kissing her. Her frame was so slight in his arms he was afraid to hold her too close and then he was thinking about her leaving, escaping to Canada without him. The voices that hummed around them echoed wildly in his head. His own voice came in through a tinny filter. “How close are you to getting a visa?”

  Her hands tensed against his back.

  “It’s what you want the money for, isn’t it?” Reef asked. She’d never really said, even though they both knew it was true.

  She slid her arms off his shoulders, her gaze on the alien watching them in the corner of the room. “You know why they stopped wearing those red bracelets?” She closed her hand around the metal tag on Reef’s wrist, hiding the letters there that spelled out her name. “Everyone wanted something from them. They thought the aliens could make anything happen with their vorpals. Could make everyone get along, stop wars. Make neighbors turn down their stereos.” She gave a little laugh.

  Reef looked down at her hand covering the bracelet. “I don’t mind if you want something from me.”

  She pulled away, her brow furrowed. His arms were left reaching, holding nothing. He dropped them to his sides. “I have to take Shasta home.” She half turned toward
a staircase that led up to the loft, then stopped to pull her goggles off and hand them to Reef. “Here, take a look around first. It’s a waste to come to a place like this without goggles.”

  All he wanted to do was pull her close to him again, but he dutifully put them on. The room was transformed into a fairy cove, the carpet a sheet of silvery water that broke around his shoes. The lights on the walls, far from ruining the effect, gave the impression that a horde of glowing fairies had infested the place. Only the music and the buzz of voices intruded on the spell. Reef tried to shut them out. He was so dizzy, his brain still clouded. He remembered reading on a forum that valuable fairy sapphires were hidden in this very cove, but he couldn’t see them anywhere in the room. He half closed his eyes. The lights were spots of gold, bleeding into each other, spreading over the walls—

  Something popped up in the corner of his vision: a holographic creature, a miniature silver dragon with cartoonish purple eyes. He realized someone was trying to initiate a chat with him using a digital pet as a mouthpiece, and then realized that the chat channel was already open.

  “Hi there,” the dragon piped. “Guess what—it stopped snowing finally. I’m going to send you some pics of me braving the outdoors again.”

  “Who is this?” Reef asked.

  “Who else? Shasta.”

  Reef frowned at the girl Cadence was carrying down the stairs. He tried to make his foggy brain work.

  “I’ve decided you’re going to be in Canada in time for Christmas,” the dragon said. “Okay? Do I have to make you promise?”

  It clicked—Shasta must be Cadence’s sister’s name too. She was the little girl’s namesake. Reef looked at Cadence bundling her daughter into a coat while the girl tried to stuff wispy hair back into her ski cap.

  “Cadence?” the dragon went on. “There’s no one here. You’re the only one I have. You and about six lopsided snowmen.” There was a pause, and then—“Are you there?”

  Someone else was trying to hail him on the chat channel too, but Reef was already tugging the strap off his head. “Here,” he said, thrusting the goggles back at Cadence. “Someone was trying to chat you.”