Animal Hackers
by Philip J. Lees
The next night they decided they’d go back, only this time everyone would go as his or her favorite animal.
It was the Space Weasel who suggested it. Breaking into the alien virtual reality world had been an adventure, for sure, but once they were inside, their usual avatars hadn’t seemed to fit right. They seemed out of place, inflexible, as if the alien software was struggling to adapt the environment to their identities when it would rather have been doing the opposite. Afterwards, it was only Weasel and Ms. Klio, whose avatar was a cat—felis erectus, as she jokingly called herself—who reported feeling comfortable there.
“Animals are simple,” Weasel said, the words unrolling across the chat window they shared. Many people had gone over to voice and vision nowadays, but the true hackers still preferred the anonymity of a keyboard when they weren’t role playing. “They’ve already got most Earth life forms on file. All mammals, anyway, and most of the larger birds. The VR can easily handle a natural environment or semi-urban—it’s the techno and the medieval magic stuff it was having trouble with.”
“That could be kewl,” said Rob the Hood, and nobody was surprised when Muff Merrimaid chipped in right afterwards in agreement. Everybody knew that Rob and Muff were a couple. They probably even had real sex and stuff, though nobody would be so crass as to bring something like that up in the group. Sometimes Weasel wondered if he and Ms. Klio might someday but there was no point thinking about that. Klio might not even be in the same country as him, let alone in the same state.
“I wanna be a tiger.” That was Infinite Loop, who seemed more or less sane lately, though it was quite possible for the Loop to freak out in one of a number of different ways at any moment. “Grrrrr! Stripes camouflage in the long grass I run and bring down gazelle. Who’ll be that gazelle?”
“Can’t do that,” Weasel said. “Tigers in India. Gazelles Africa. No can do.”
“Who gives a shit,” the Loop said. “bbbbbbbb BBB!” The bees were the Loop’s way of expressing mild irritation. If the irritation developed into annoyance Loop’s finger might stay on the key for ten or twenty seconds, filling the chat screen with row after row of the same letter. It was a good way of forestalling argument.
So back they went. Rob and the Loop set up a fake hack attempt to lure the alien security systems off to one side, while Weasel and Ms. Klio opened the back door wide enough for all of them to slip in without being noticed. As usual, he and Klio worked smoothly as partners and it was almost too easy this second time. The Weasel scampered off into the undergrowth—now it was a savanna, with a few trees and bushes and lots of scrub grass and a lake with a couple of rivers feeding into it. Every possible kind of habitat one could wish for.
The Loop was the tiger and he roared and reared into the air, flashing his claws in and out. Nobody went near. It didn’t do to mess with the Loop when he was in this kind of mood.
Weasel sniffed around for a bit, stalked a few beetles and shrews, but before long he started to get tired of it again. There’d been no sign of Klio, which was surprising and also disappointing. He crept back and peered through the tall reeds near the waterhole to see what everyone else was up to.
There was some kind of antelope drinking at a place where a sandy slope formed a beach at the edge of the pool. The Weasel didn’t know if it was one of their crowd or just a random artifact created by the VR. He saw a movement over to his right and watched the Loop living out his fantasy.
The tiger crept along the ground, slinking along like a snake, with its belly touching the earth. One step at a time it got closer to the antelope. When it was only a few meters away it broke into a run and sprang. The antelope let out a kind of whistling squeal that wasn’t like anything the Weasel had heard before and then it was on the ground and the tiger was tearing at its throat with teeth the size of daggers.
The Weasel had seen enough. As the body he was using wasn’t much different from his regular avatar he still wore the space belt around his middle and he’d rigged a virtual button that would disconnect him and let him drop back out into the real world. Weasel pressed the button. For a second nothing happened and he was just about to stab at it again when the reeds and the lake started breaking up into a kaleidoscope of shapes and colors. For an instant the Weasel existed inside a bubble of nothingness—no light, no sound, no temperature, no air against the skin—then he was back in his den, feet up on the desk, keyboard in his lap.
Weasel pulled off the VR helmet and gloves. He was sweating and his stomach didn’t feel so good. The image of the tiger and the antelope was still in his mind. Shit, he thought. That could’ve been me.
The computer clock said 2 a.m. Still early, but for some reason Weasel didn’t feel like socializing any more. In any case there was nothing new in the chat window. He must have been the only one to leave early. “Getting some zzzz,” he typed, then he clicked the logout icon. He set the computer to start a self scan.
There were two slices of pizza on a crumpled foil tray on the edge of his desk. Weasel reached for one of them, but the color of the tomato sauce reminded him of the blood gushing from the antelope’s neck. He swore and swept the pizza into the trash bin. Then he rolled out of the swivel chair onto the mattress on the floor and pulled a couple of blankets around him.
“Lights off,” he called. The room was plunged into relative darkness, only the flickering light of the computer monitor cast strange patterns on the wall and ceiling. Weasel screwed his eyes shut and started to chant his mantra to himself: easily weaselly, easily weaselly. He was already asleep when the monitor’s energy-saving setting switched it off and the darkness became complete.
§
Weasel exploded into wakefulness and found himself shaking, on the floor beside his mattress. He’d been back in the alien VR habitat, watching Loop the tiger hunting, only this time the antelope that was the tiger’s prey was Ms. Klio. Weasel had tried to shout a warning as the tiger crept closer, to tell her to run, but his vocal cords had been disabled and he could only manage a barely audible wheeze. So he tried to get closer, make her see him, put himself in the way if necessary. Anything rather than see Klio slaughtered. No good. His legs wouldn’t work either. Squirming through the grass on his side, Weasel saw the tiger’s muscles tense for the leap, then there was that unreal scream again, but this time it was Klio’s voice screaming, as Weasel put every bit of his strength, every atom of his will, into one forced convulsion that jerked him out of his dream body back into his real one, threw him out of bed, and woke him up.
He lay there sweating, while his conscious mind persuaded his unconscious that it hadn’t been real. After a minute, he shuddered, rolled over onto his knees and got to his feet. He grabbed a carton of orange juice from the fridge and drained half of it in three long swallows. The trouble was, there was no way he could mention this to Klio. They chatted all the time, sometimes even when nobody else was in the chat room, but never about anything serious, personally serious. He was sure Klio liked him, but his feelings for her left him confused. How could you be in love with someone you’d never met? No, that couldn’t be it. But still, his chest tightened up whenever he saw her come on line.
§
Around midday he logged in again. Rob the Hood was there, but nobody else. Not even Muff, surprisingly.
“Yo!” said Weasel.
“Where’d you go?” Rob asked.
“Got bored. I explored a bit, then dropped out.”
“Yeah. Me too. After half an hour. You have trouble disconnecting?”
“A bit. Took a second.”
“Nearly a minute, me. Tried three times. Scared the shit out of me. That place is too damn real. I almost couldn’t shut it off.”
“Anything on the news?” Weasel typed.
“Still nothing. Weird.”
It was several days since Infinite Loop had stumbled across the network address that led to the alien environment—at least, it was several days since he’d told the rest of them about it. From day to day Weasel had been expecting some public announcement of an orbiting spaceship, or something of the sort, but so far it hadn’t happened.
“They must be covering it up. Afraid people will freak out.”
“Yeah,” Rob said.
“Hi guys.” That was Ms. Klio. Weasel relaxed for the first time that day. He hadn’t realized he was still so tense.
“Hi Klio,” he rattled out, before Rob could react. Had she been waiting for him to come on line before she logged in? Maybe.
“So are we going back?” Klio typed. For what seemed a long time there was just the cursor flashing in the chat window, as neither Weasel nor Rob responded.
“You really want to?” Rob asked finally.
“Missed it last night,” Klio said. “Brownout.”
So she hadn’t been there at all.
“Wasn’t great shakes,” Weasel said. “Just like a zoo.”
“Maybe we should try something different,” Rob said.
“I know,” Klio said. “We’ll let the VR give us what bodies it wants. That way we’ll get to see what the aliens look like!”
“Kewl!!!” Rob said. His enthusiasm clearly returned.
Weasel wasn’t sure if it was kewl or not. He was beginning to get a bad feeling about the whole thing. But if Klio was going, so was he.
“Right on!” he typed.
“Same as before,” Rob said. “I’ll blindside. You two open the door.”
Weasel’s palms were sweaty as he pulled on the gloves and helmet and linked himself in to the search console. This time, on his VR persona menu he didn’t link in any avatar parameters, just checked the ‘default’ box. At the last moment, he decided to take along his space belt as an accessory. You never knew.
Again it was easy. The simulated visual interface placed the Weasel in a box like a phone booth, but with a much more complex console. He tapped a ‘key’ and his VR glove transmitted that signal as if he’d really carried out the action in the physical world. LEDs lit up to show that Klio and Rob were also in and waiting. Then Rob’s LED widened and split into two, one half green, the other red. The red meant he’d triggered a security mechanism. Weasel’s fingers flickered across the keyboard and he knew Klio would be doing the same. By entering two series of alternate prime numbers at high speed they could trick the quantum computer module into generating all possible access codes simultaneously. One of them would be correct and they would be in.
It was the quantum aspect that made this place so exciting, and also told them they were dealing with alien technology. The only quantum computers on Earth were primitive, one or two qubit devices. There was nothing remotely this complex. It had taken them most of the first day to figure out how to hack it.
The console lights flickered in an ever accelerating rhythm, then for half a second they all lit up at the same time. There was a loud click from behind Weasel and he knew that represented the ‘unlocking’ of the door. He turned around to see a panel sliding aside to let him leave the cubicle and enter the VR world. Back in his apartment the VR helmet was picking up his brain activity and translating it into motion, so that by thinking about walking he could move around here. Weasel stepped through the door.
He was standing on the metal floor of a corridor that curved away in both directions. He was alone. Uh oh. Where were the others? Well, they wouldn’t be far. He looked down at himself. He was wearing a lime green jump suit and soft, black, ankle-length boots. He was pleased to see the space belt around his waist. He stretched out his right hand. Apart from the heavy brown claw at the end of each digit, there was something else. Two thumbs! One on each side. Weasel experimented. By concentrating appropriately he could make his pinky operate either the fourth finger or the extra thumb. Kewl! He looked around for something reflective, so he could get a look at his face.
Footsteps. Then someone came into view around the curve. A little taller than Weasel, maybe, and the face was like a cross between an iguana and a German shepherd dog, only brown and hairless. The other person stopped. It was looking at his middle. At the belt.
“Weasel?” the alien said uncertainly.
“Right. Rob?” How had he sensed that? There wasn’t anything that obviously identified the other as male.
“Major kewl!” Rob said. He started walking again. When he got close to Weasel he put his hand out.
“Shake!”
Weasel tried. It was impossibly difficult figuring out where all the fingers and thumbs had to go and they both started laughing, a strange coughing sound through the alien larynxes that made the joke even funnier.
They were practically doubled up and didn’t hear Klio’s approach from the opposite direction.
“I knew you guys were jerks,” she said.
Except for her being a bit shorter, there was nothing to indicate any sex difference. Oh well. Presumably the aliens could tell. Weasel pulled himself together.
“Right,” he said, feeling he might make up some ground with Klio by being more assertive. “Let’s find the bridge. Or engineering. Or anything that isn’t a corridor.”
He glanced to left and right. No difference.
“See any doors?” Rob and Klio shook their heads.
A complete guess, then.
“This way,” Weasel said, and started walking.
§
After twenty minutes it wasn’t funny any more. They walked slowly at first, then faster as their irritation started to grow, but there was nothing except featureless corridor. No doors, no hatches, no view ports, no instrument panels. Nothing.
“This is pointless,” Rob said. He slumped down on the floor with his back against a bulkhead, bow legs splayed out in front of him.
Weasel agreed, but he didn’t want to give up. The only positive development he’d noticed was that he now felt more at home in this body. He could even use the extra thumb without having to concentrate.
“Maybe we’re going about this wrong,” he said. “When is a door not a door? Answer: when it’s ajar.”
“Are you nuts?” Rob said, but Klio was looking thoughtful.
“So,” Weasel continued, “when is not a door a door?”
“When you open it,” Klio said. He knew she’d get it. Smart girl!
“Right.”
Weasel walked up the inner side of the curve and placed his right hand against the wall, preparing himself to look foolish. He let the hand spread to match the wall’s surface and as he did so he felt the wall soften under his palm and fingers. He curved his fingers and thumbs in a gentle grip and the wall reshaped itself to accommodate them. Then, not really knowing why, he rotated his hand clockwise and the section of wall in front of him just melted away.
“Cripes!” Rob was on his feet again.
“Well done that Weasel,” Klio said.
The three of them stepped through the gap and it immediately rematerialized behind them. They were in a room about five meters square. One corner was partitioned off by a transparent barrier, something like a shower cubicle, but with small holes at regular intervals. Inside it was another alien humanoid like themselves, apparently unconscious. Seated at a table in the middle of the room was something different. Same basic design, but big differences in the options. A bigger head, fringed with what looked like green velvet tassels. A wider body, especially in the middle, and shorter legs. The hands had narrower, more elegant digits.
The new alien stood up.
“Weasel?” it said. It recognized the space belt. “Rob, Klio, is that you?”
“Marie,” Rob said, starting towards the individual who Weasel now realized must be Muff Merrimaid. So that was her real name.
“Sorry,” Muff said. “I tried to warn you but they cut me off.”
“How did you get here?” Rob blurted.
“I’ve been here since last time,” Muff said. She glanced at the unconscious body in the corner. “Neither of us could get out. After about an hour they came and fetched us here. Loop fought them but they took him down with some kind of sound weapon.”
“Just a minute,” Weasel said. “Are you saying you’re stuck here? That doesn’t make any sense.”
Muff nodded.
“This is how they recruit their crew,” she said. “You think you’re in VR, but all the time they’re uploading your personality into one of these bodies. Once it’s done you can’t go back.” She sighed. “It’s a trap for smart people.”
Weasel remembered the wrench the last time he’d withdrawn from the alien VR, remembered Rob had had even more trouble getting out after a longer time.
“Quick,” he turned to Klio. “How long have we been here this time?”
“I dunno,” she said. “Thirty, maybe forty minutes.”
“We have to get out,” Weasel said. “Right away, while we still have a chance.”
“Is this VR then?” Klio said. “Or the real thing?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care. Time to go.” Weasel fingered the disconnect button at his waist. But what about Klio.
“The baby,” Rob said, looking incredulously at Muff’s mid region.
She nodded, tossing her green tassels.
“Her too. They’re so advanced, they must have been uploading both of us through the same interface.”
“Shit!” Rob said, thumping the table. The alien Muff hugged him.
“We’ll be okay,” she said. “I don’t even want to go back now.”
“Then I’m staying, too,” Rob said. He hugged her back.
Something was bothering Weasel. Something was not right. If this Muff/Marie person was the female alien form, then Klio
“Klio,” Weasel said. “You’re a guy?”
“I thought you knew,” Klio said. “Ms. Klio is the name of my cat. I like her to have adventures, is all.”
Now what? Weasel thought. But every minute that passed would make it harder for them to leave.
“Come on,” he said. “We’re out of here.” Would his disconnect button cover Klio, too. It might if she believed in it. If he believed in it. Dammit. He grabbed Klio’s left hand in his right.
“When I press this button,” he said, “we’re leaving. Both of us. Got it?”
Klio nodded, looking at him with an odd expression. It was almost as if but no. Concentrate, Weasel thought. They would probably never ever meet in person, so what the hell did it matter anyway?
“On three,” he said. “One, two ”
Then there was that nothingness, an aching emptiness through which he could somehow sense the alien body holding on to him, gripping his mind, refusing to allow it to leave. He was icy cold and burning hot at the same time; he had no weight, yet a crushing pressure threatened to collapse his chest. He felt a panic close to madness.
A small fragment of mind within the Space Weasel remembered his nightmare. Remembered how he threw himself out of the dream body back to reality, made him twist in the same way, use the last dregs of his energy to hurl himself through some fourth dimension, so that it felt as if he was splitting himself in two. Weasel screamed.
Then there was silence and peace. Carpet against his cheek. After some unfathomable time, coffee, he thought.
§
Later, he logged in to the chat room, typed in “Yo!” Sat waiting for Klio to come on line. For anybody to come on line. Watched the cursor in the empty text box flashing, flashing
- End -
© Copyright Philip J. Lees 2009