Analogues
(First published in Erratica, spring 1997)
by Dru Pagliassotti

The attack dose of Piracetam was kicking in; 8,000 mg of neurotransmitter gamma-amino-butyric acid analogue, according to the med who'd dropped the ten tablets into my hand before I walked into the VR chamber. Almost an hour had passed since then, and the redline matrix on my sensor-effector interface display was dancing like a neon nymphette before my eyes. I hate chemical affect.

"Problem?" I asked, turning. The phosphotron check still hovered there as my view changed, a light-labyrinth overlay to the VR chamber's sterility.

"It's registering the deep tactile disable. Relax." The technician's eyes had the slightly unfocused look of a man intent on his own virtual light displays. "Safety precaution."

"Nice." I closed my eyes again and tried to relax on the control couch. I'd used the Walser-Gibson Deck before, but never one as high-tech as SNS8's. My eyes itched from the laser scan, and the sensor-effector interface suit was some lightweight, porous material that clung uncomfortably to every square inch my body surface; a quantum leap from the bulky senseff armor I still used with my home deck. The light exoskeleton banded around the suit chafed a little, but provided resistance, the illusion of object solidity. Despite the discomfort, I could see the advantages. If I lived to collect my comission, I decided one of these suits would figure prominently in the stated fee.

"Reads out fine. Feel okay?"

"Yeah, no worry." I slowly turned, making sure my range of movement on the motion platform was full. It was a lightcage platform; no wires, just a full scan registering every move I made. Another big advantage over my own rig.

"Good. You know the routine, punch out, retrofit?"

"Yeah, I know!" I felt myself getting impatient and checked the display; nerves and Piracetam. I'd have to watch that; I didn't need a chemically induced attitude problem in cyberspace. The tech just nodded and handed me the blackout display.

"Hope you find him."

I smiled reassuringly and slid the shades on; dark glass to black out real light and concentrate my mind on the virtual display that was being scanned in by nodes along the sides of the frames. The critical process monitor was relegated to a small part of my overall perception; I hadn't wanted the thing at all, but SNS8 had insisted. It was a legal precaution; not that I had any relatives to bitch if I ended up flatlined. I like to think of that as part of my commercial attraction to the corporate mind.

I settled the audio-spatial helmet over my head.

The control space graphed up in skeletal neon around me; a bare-bones virtual construction to keep my subjectivity intact as I waited on the first stage to be logged online. Redlights on the cpm counted down the seconds until log-on. I glanced down.

You don't need a body in cyberspace, but it didn't take long to discover that most humans have a psychological need to anchor their self to something "solid"—the virtual identity, the puppet, the avatar, the handle, the sig. Cyberpsychology's a booming field. Doesn't matter how you look, as long as you have a look. I was in my usual; I'd shift if it became necessary, but it's usually an asset to be recognizable on the Net.

John Guilt—neorealist, tall, spare, in unrelieved black. A face too much on the stern side. Not much like what I really look like, overweight and getting old, but John's an avatar I wear as easily as a pair of jeans, and cyberheads know him. I'd wanted an archetype, some image of the collective bounty hunter mythago, and John Guilt had served me faithfully for over twenty years.

The cpm flashed and the interface linked; suddenly the bare-bones room turned into an endless virtual universe. Cyberspace; an infinite realm, although SNS8's computer had been programmed to send me to the net, that set of interactive user options that had become a second home to cyberheads like me. A synaesthesiac stream of data flashed before me, not quite visible; I chose my favorite first stop, a sub set up a generation ago and maintained in the family. It wasn't a full world; just a building, the Inn Between; but the interfacsimilies are sota.

"John." The 'proprietor'—and part owner of the Inn's digital analogue—waved her silver hand and winked. Her avatar was pure manga. "Drink on me if I can't guess what brings you here."

I smiled slightly; Ivanya was an old friend.

"Tell me," I said simply, walking through a room of avatars and sitting down at the bar. News travels faster in the net than anywhere else. I didn't bother ordering; a virtual drink is mostly pointless, except to pose. Although hypertalk had it that Ivanya was working on a chemical taste-analogue with a major senseff corporation.

"You're after the telerapist, aren't you?"

I nodded.

"Doesn't it figure? You get a tech you can build your whole damn personal reality in, and someone's gotta find a way to hurt someone else with it. You figure out how he does it?"

"I have a good idea," I admitted. That was why SNS8 had hired me; they were afraid the murderer was using their technology and wanted to stop the crimes before the media pounced. The tech was just weeks from marketing, and they didn't want this potential to get out; that was for their pending militdustrial contract. Not that there isn't crime in cyberspace. Some is typical, like slander, data-theft, vandalism, hacking—and some is more unusual, like indecent exposure or attempted "rape." But in personal crimes, there's always the log-off option. But things had recently taken a turn for a worse, and this time the option wasn't available. "By the way," I added, "I'm not assuming male. Not all the victims have been wearing female avatars ... or even been gendered."

Ivanya gave me a long, unreadable look, then slowly nodded, light flashing from her polished-metal mask. In a virtual reality, sex is a matter of taste. I simply took "Ivanya's" feminity on faith, as she took the masculinity of "John Guilt."

"That's not going to make your job any easier."

"I was hoping you might have heard something."

"I don't know much about this one, John," she sighed. "I wish I did; this is one user who's out of control. Necro-opt is one thing, coercion is another."

I let that one slide; Ivanya and I had different views on personal responsibility in the net. I don't think there's any excuse for death-analogues in cyberspace; it seems twisted, to me. Most necrophiles kill themselves, eventually; flesh flatline. Seems to me like some realtime counseling would do them a world of good. But I belong to an older generation. This ain't the cyberspace I grew up with, any more.

"Anything?" I asked.

"You might want to talk to Player. Heard of him?"

"He runs Rough Trade." It was an S&M telerotica sub. Virtual bondage means never having to say you're sorry. At least, that's the trade-talk. SNS8's latest was going to update the concept ... considerably.

"He's got a huge database of avatars and sexual preferences. It might be a starting place."

I'd hoped she'd know more. I stood.

"Thanks. Drop a line if you think of something else."

"Right. Take care, now." She nodded as I left, threading my way through the crowd to the front step. It wasn't necessary, of course, but it was considered in bad taste to break a sub's integrity. I logged from there to Rough Trade.

Player was a neorealist; Rough Trade was programmed to look like any porn club you might find in the back streets of L.A. or Chicago. Except Player would probably never have been able to afford or maintain a club in the real city.

Something red moved toward me, passing thoughtlessly through Player's carefully placed pavement and trash.

"John." Player logged in; for all his neorealist effort on the club, he doesn't care much about personal integrity. He keeps his VL overlays on to alert him when someone arrives.

"You have ants, Player." I gestured toward the red thing that oozed slowly to the left. A nebulous probe touched me, passed through my virtual body. SNS8's suit registered it as a touch that grew steadily more painful before cutting off; deep tactile disable. I pulled back, stomach churning. The suit was too damn good; my old senseff suit doesn't even register ant-touch.

"Reminds me of the rats back home," Player said affectionately, waving it away. The ant, apparently deciding neither of us was füd, logged out—or whatever equivalent cyberforms have developed to move from place to place. They'd been invented in the early days of AI research, when programmers were still playing with the idea of life-analogues. Eat, breed, evolve; doesn't sound like much, but some hard-core proponents of animal liberation let them loose all over the computer networks. Militdustrial users were determined to exterminate them; the memory the ants used wreaked havoc on their programs. Most of the rest of us tolerated them, and some even adopted the things "out of the wild," as it were, programming füd for them. I find them a little less annoying than worms and viruses, but only by a margin. I hear a whole new branch of anthropology's developing around the things. Like scientists have nothing better to do.

"Haven't seen you lately. The usual?"

"It's business this time."

"So." His expression shifted, became more guarded. "What's wrong?"

"I'm hunting the telerapist."

Player's lips quirked up slightly.

"Any rape going on here's between mutually assenting users," he said, pale eyes glittering.

"I want a readout of rapist avatars, from a year ago to today. Your regulars and your suspects."

It was a bold request, without a warrant. Player gave me a cynical smile.

"And what is the John Guilt going to do for the Player?" he asked sardonically, shoving his hands into the pockets of well-worn jeans and cocking his head. It really was a masterpiece of neorealism. "Want to work here awhile? You've fucked over so many users, they'd probably like a chance to return the favor."

Physical violence is more or less useless in cyberspace—or, at least, it used to be—and Nervenkrieg was likely to take me further than I wanted to go. I began linelocking through SNS8's computer. Player started slightly as his VL displays began twinkling.

"I'll transfer the usual sum to your account," I stated flatly as his punch-out degrees of freedom began shrinking. "Nobody finds out. You know my M.O."

"So I do," Player said, regarding me with sour amusement. My cpm warned me that he was attempting his own constraint maneuver. SNS8's computer slammed down on him, crushing his attempt with scornful ease. He cocked his head curiously, realizing I wasn't using my own deck.

"I -" suddenly the cpm flashed and a message scrolled over my virlight overlay.

Fourth victim found realname Eva Rocozo handle Harlequin Sub Capre's Flatline time 0120-0140 found by husband 0602 no physical damage deck shows usual REM/EEG pattern corresponding to rape-readouts.

I checked the time—0614. Damn!

"Problem?"

"The readout?" I called up SNS8's interface line and registered the credit transfer, pending. Player double-checked, then nodded. Data sped from whatever computer interface he was using to the SNS8 system, which dumped it to me. The cpm flashed an amber email sign. I checked it quickly; the message seemed intact and clean.

"See you later, then." Player turned as someone else logged in, a poseur from the latest blockbuster. I called up my own sub and left.

When I started running the net as a kid, I'd built up my sub carefully, made it as realistic as possible. Since then I'd flirted with over a dozen virtualities, and the sub reflected it. Sometimes I thought I should just erase the whole thing and start over, but when it came around to actually doing it, I never seemed to be in the mood. The chaos soothed me. So I dropped into some glowing nimbus of a program that I'd designated "chair" about ten years ago during an ars lux phase and ran Player's data through in a synaesth fugue.

One handle immediately froze the scroll.

It was mine.

The Piracetaminal rush started. My cpm began flashing yellow.

I used Rough Trade. I did not use the rapist telerotica. The logon dates were random; sometimes I'd been logged on elsewhere, sometimes I'd been off the system altogether. John Guilt was a well-known, replicable handle. Avatar use in Rough Trade was retina-verified. Technology existed to duplicate retinal patterns. It was damn expensive and complex.

And whether or not the poseur was the rapist/murderer, I didn't like the idea of my avatar being used without me. That kind of thing was fair game in the courts, these days.

Email flashed from SNS8. I scanned and trashed it; they'd have to wait for my update.

I ran a search string on my appearances in the last month and called up my own Guilt file. While the string ran, I compared the logon times to Player's records. No match. The bastard had his—her?—own file.

The search data unscrolled; not only had I—had John—been reported in Rough Trade, but a number of other places I hadn't been present for. Random places; the other me hadn't saved any activity files, so I had no idea what "I" had been doing.

I called up all files under John Guilt. Only mine appeared. I called up all my other files. Only mine appeared. I constructed a graphic image and called up its files.

Access denied.

"Son of a bitch," I muttered, smiling tightly.

All I needed was a starting point, and I'd just found it. Now the only question was whether or not I should continue the hunt or file it away until my current job was finished.

I'd wait, but this poseur was doing more than just hacking my persona, and the raperotica bent was way offline for me. I was a little uncomfortable just knowing Player had me recorded on those programs; after all, if he'd sell the info to me, he'd sell it to someone else, too. Why use my avatar? Just to screw me over? Or so "I" could screw someone else over, who might resent it and get back at me?

Player hadn't been offline when he'd made the crack about John Guilt's track record. After twenty years, John had made a lot of enemies. It wasn't hard to imagine one of them setting me up.

An ant scuttled through my chair, hunting the virtual room for füd.

I checked the cpm. It was still on yellow, showing the drug effects. There was a significance in the paranoia scale, so I checked and reevaluated my concern. The facts were still there. Somewhere there was another John Guilt, and that Guilt was into telefuck in a rough way—in every way.

The ant blinked out. I don't leave füd around for the things.

I summoned up the image file again.

Access denied.

"Crack it," I muttered, calling up SNS8's resources. The program began hunting the net for backdoors, trapdoors, any other weak link. I only surface-monitored while I called up Ivanya's code.

Any users complain about unauthorized logons lately? Send.

Two beats, and a yellow reply icon with Ivanya's name.

Two I know, Tao Jones and Abracadaver. Hackers?

I ignored her last question and called up the names on Player's file, then ran a search on their handles. Tao Jones wasn't online, but Abracadaver was logged onto a game sub. I hated to break his integrity, but this was business.

Investigating ID piracy. Do appended records match your code file? Attach datafile Ruftrade.txt. Send.

SNS8's cracking program registered a file flaw and send in a timed worm. I waited impatiently for Abracadaver's reply, taking the time to sketch out a brief explanation for the SNS8 techs who were waiting somewhere outside the platform my real body was moving in, watching their computer monitors. Abracadaver's reply came in minutes after I sent it off.

Hell no, who is this pervert? Never been there. What's up?

I gleefully sent a news pending reply and began an active monitor of the crack program. The file had been programmed with intrusion countermeasures, and a scan through the back record of SNS8's attempts of the last two or three minutes showed that whoever'd ICed the file had done a masterclass job. I was impressed. Whoever was using my name, s/he must be a real technarch to keep SNS8's state-of-the-art processors hopping.

The worm exploded, and ICe shivered and collapsed into datastrophe.

"Watchdog," I subvoiced. The SNS8 computer pulled a defrost program from its memory and a new light appeared on my cpm, telling me the file was clean of countermeasures. "Copy."

The content of my alter ego's file began spilling into SNS8's data storage. I was beginning to love that computer; there's nothing better than riding cutting-edge tech after years on a turtle.

My monitor readout flashed and vanished.

"Hell." I composed a short, pithy message telling the SNS8 techs to keep their hands off the computer while I was accessing it, and sent it to mail.

Server name error. Check name and try again?

I rechecked the mail code and tried again.

Server name error. Check name and again?

I swore. Some idiot had closed down the email line, and there was no way I could access John Guilt 2's file from cyberspace until it reopened.

I initiated logoff and reached up to pull off the helm and glasses. My arms didn't move, virtually or really.

Command not found.

I sent the command again, frowning. My meat body felt frozen.

Command not found.

I tried emergency punchout.

Command not found.

"Oh, hell," I muttered, getting a very bad feeling about the whole thing.. A virtual body can't shiver, but somewhere on a corporation's deck platform a shudder went down my meat body's spine.

Logover—Inn Between.

Command not found.

I was trapped.

It didn't take too much imagination to figure out what had happened. Whatever bastard was impersonating me had programmed sleeping ICe into the file, and as soon as SNS8 had copied it the program had woken up and gone into action. It was good enough to pass SNS8's antiviral program, and it was disabling the computer operation by operation. Including the motor activity on the senseff suit's exoskeleton. I was locked in place.

And until it disabled my virtual reality interface, I was helpless. I couldn't even hope one of SNS8's techs would break the connection manually; how would they know something was wrong? At least, at first.

The critical processes monitor flickered and blinked off. For a moment I felt nauseous as my mind's eye hastily tried to focus on a virtual sensory input without a VL line overlay.

The first thing I had to do was find out how much freedom I had. My hands moved, I could rotate, but I couldn't lift my arms, my legs. I tried to speak, then realized I wouldn't be able to tell if I was successful until someone else was there to hear. In virtual reality, you can always hear yourself scream; speech isn't a matter of moving air, but of the computer monitoring and translating into electronic symbols the muscular and nervous movements of your vocal cords, tongue, and lips, and sending it over the interface to the receiver's "mind's ear." I remember when it used to be heralded as a boon to the deaf and mute. Now it was just commonplace—until you weren't sure it was working anymore.

I tried to shift avatars, get out of John Guilt and into an old, little-used gaming handle, Havoc the One-Handed.

Command not found.

So. I tried to guess my options.

It was about the time that programming a virtual "Help!" note into the next ant that shifted through my room and hoping that someone would find it and rescue me was beginning to sound more plausible that everything went black.

With a sense of trepidation, I reached up. There were two options, and my arms still didn't move, my fingers didn't find a black glass mask. I wasn't back in my physical body.

Which left me with a disconnected interface to my vision center. Mindblind in a cyberspace.

When the first glowing lines began to draw a new world around me, I realized I'd been wrong. I wasn't blind. I'd been overriden. Someone was creating a new reality for me.

"Who is it?" I asked, turning to watch the graphix dance around me and realizing I was indeed standing, not sitting. I glanced down. In the dim "light" from the creation around me I could determine that whoever my captor was, s/he hadn't recreated me, at least. My avatar had been transferred intact.

"...John."

I stood before a mirrorme. As far as I could tell, it was a master-class analogue.

"Nice." I nodded toward the crazed virtual reality that was beginning to take shape around us, still unable to move my limbs. It was something out of a psychotic's nightmare, an unholy communion of Bosch and cubism; I'd seen the signature pattern before. A lot of schizophrenics draw pictures like it. Fractals on crack. "All yours?"

"I" reached out and tried to put a hand through myself.

"Damn!" I jerked backward, startled. The exoskeleton let me move, but it didn't let me lift my hands to catch my balance. I shuffled a little, wondering what the techs in SNS8 were seeing.

I'd thought the senseff interface had been disconnected along with everything else, but that touch hurt, and what's more, it ignored my personal integrity. I reached for a linelock to try to trap the poseur, but as soon as the command not found reply began blinking, I realized that I had virtually no chance of fighting him. No pun intended. "Watch it!"

The other John Guilt dropped his hand. The world around us kept changing, getting tighter. "...Hello? How are you?"

"Pissed," I said tightly. "Is that your ICe screwing up my interfaces?" Of course, it had to be, since he apparently had access to my sensory input; or at least my sight. I felt helpless.

Total sensory slavery. The ability to reprogram my world. I began to feel sick again as I realized just what he could do to me if he did have access to all of my interfaces. Rapist, indeed. My excursions through Rough Trade's doors hadn't prepared me for his kind of telefuck.

"...ICe?" The other John Guilt sounded puzzled, although "my" face didn't change much. I wondered if that was how I looked to other people. He paused a second. "...ICe not found. "

"Then what the hell did you do?" The question was prompted as much by necessity as curiosity; if I knew how he did what he was doing, I might be able to defend myself against it. Although I doubted it. Not at this point in the game.

"...Help—command interface?"

I nodded.

"...John Guilt accessed."

A hacker?

"What do you want, then?" I asked, nerving myself for the answer. He might have a Nervenkrieg advantage over me, but he'd find I could do my share of psychological damage, too. Twenty years in cyberspace had taught me a lot of dirty tricks.

"...What do you want, then?" he repeated.

I allowed myself to feel cautiously relieved; if the other John Guilt was prompted by curiosity rather than hatred, I might have a chance. At least he hadn't attacked yet.

"Two things," I said, straining to keep my voice neutral. "First, I'd like to find out why you're using my avatar. Second, I'd like to ask you a few questions about an investigation I'm currently working on. Maybe you could help me. Why are you using my avatar?"

"...Guilt avatar access, 23 lists, 114 subs. Programming links operative. I am hungry."

I decided to tread carefully around that non sequitur.

"Hungry?"

"...Yes."

"Have you eaten recently?"

"...No."

"What happened to keep you from eating, then?"

"...Survival. Guilt avatar threatened."

I almost didn't want to ask the next question, but I had to. I just hoped whoever this was didn't feel inclined to add some sort of virtual cannabalism to his or her growing list of crimes.

"Can I help you find something to eat?"

"...Programming links operative."

I tried to call up my bank account, but wasn't surprised when the attempt failed. Besides, I would have noticed if someone had been playing around with my funds; I'm anal about that kind of thing. I didn't think he was using access to John Guilt to hack into my accounts, anyway. I was growing increasingly convinced this person was the criminal I'd been hunting; s/he was definitely operating without a directory.

"How do I help you do that?" I asked.

"...Programming links operative. Food access available."

In cyberspace? I started to frame my next question when something in my mind, maybe the last vestiges of the Piracetamin, clicked. I'd attributed the lag in his voice to a hardware problem; his deck or mine, and probably mine—but it could be something very different.

I'm no bladerunner, but even I could tell this guy wasn't scoring high on the old Turing test. That lag could be a tarpit of backdata access.

"If you let me interface with the computer, I will create some food for you," I offered. The other John Guilt hesitated, then decided.

A very truncated version of the cpm flickered up. My exoskeleton still didn't move, but the link to SNS8 had been reestablished. I rattled off the commands before my mind's eye could adjust, not needing to see any icons to tell the SNS8 computer which program to run.

Blocks of neon-green füd appeared in front of me.

My other self hesitated a second, then collapsed into a dark red mutable glob, sending feelers over the food and engulfing it.

Hardly pausing, I sent off a staccato of commands while the interface was still open. Immediately SNS8's supercomputer began to work, analyzing the electronic signals that were this creature before me, this ant that had realized its original programmer's dreams. Eat, breed, evolve. But it hadn't been taught the context of legality and illegality in human "breeding" attempts; and its complete sensory domination had condemned its victims to psychosomatic death.

As soon as SNS8 had copied the ant's program to its files, it released an extermination program.

The ant vanished, wiped from cyberspace.

I looked around and realized that I had my movement back. That last, paranoid check for the enemy had never felt better.

Like the end of a bad horror game, the monster wasn't dead. It was in SNS8's computer memory. It could be rebooted—and it would be, for study. I had just moved it from one place to another, not killed it.

I looked down at the füd.

Eat, breed, evolve. Thousands of AI horror stories, but it wasn't the computer gods we had to fear; it was the computer vermin. We'd killed our gods, but we never had been able to kill our roaches.

What the hell. I left the füd for the ants and logged off.