Repo Virtual

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  Copyright Page

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  For jorm and Wolven

  PART ONE

  Moxie and a Clipboard

  CHAPTER ONE

  There are two things every repo needs: moxie and a clipboard. No matter the job—a car, a truck, or an ultra-heavy Winter-class dreadnought with enough firepower to shatter a small moon—the fundamentals stay the same. You walk in like you own the place, and if anyone asks any questions, you flash them a clipboard full of complicated forms.

  The dreadnought’s hull gleamed like scorched diamonds in the light of a thousand artificial stars. Too huge for the Grzyb Station hangar, it was berthed outboard, the massive vertical ship secured by little more than a docking ring and half a dozen auto-turrets.

  JD drifted in close with thrusters on manual, his hands gliding over the controls in a separate reality. A low dhoom rattled his eardrums as his corvette touched down, magnetic clamps holding fast to the dreadnought like a tick on a stray dog. JD took a clipboard from inventory and stood up from his seat with a shadow of pain spiking his knee.

  Two-forty-five a.m. Moscow time. T-minus fifteen minutes.

  “Khoder, you there?”

  Silence at first, then the chat channel opened with a burst of noise, bass tones too low for JD’s cheap headphones.

  “Not anywhere else,” Khoder said.

  “Is Dix in position?”

  “Waiting on one more.”

  “Alright. Keep me posted.”

  “Need a bigger envelope,” Khoder said, then he cut the chat. Adolescent smart-ass with a dad’s sense of humor—JD couldn’t help but smile.

  He cleared his airlock and stepped out onto the docking ring, walls splashed with the red and black of the Asshole Federation. He walked toward his quarry, footsteps beating out a too-perfect rhythm, sharp clacks echoing in the high-ceilinged space. People stood static along the gangway, avatars left standing idle for unknown reasons, on abandoned errands. Come back a week later and some would still be there—digital ghosts, lifeless but immortal.

  JD paused at the dreadnought’s airlock, and moved outside his avatar to open a link to the repo database. Authentication details scrolled across his vision, words strobing too fast to process. Access granted, JD’s fingers moved quick, flicking through his tagged jobs to start on the paperwork.

  “Oi, хуесос; fuck you doing?” The Russian spoke at a pubescent pitch, voice coming distant and hollow across a high-latency link.

  “Official business, mudak,” JD said: you didn’t work repo for any length of time without learning insults in a dozen languages. He turned to face the kid’s avatar, half-hidden behind a wall of corporate legalese that JD was meant to read but never did. The kid wore one of the default human character models, a boring, white, power fantasy—stacked with muscles, buzzcut hair, and a ring of too-dark tattoos around his neck like a bad rash.

  JD’s own avatar was from the pool of Arika aliens, living crystal beings that fed on starlight, and shattered into glittering refractive clouds on death. His first character had closely resembled his real self, but the moment he found himself surrounded by other players, the racist slurs started. Even in-game, his blackness was a provocation. He was almost relieved when that avatar died, giving JD an excuse to start over.

  The Russian hurled another insult, loud enough for his voice to crackle and distort. JD muted him and held out his clipboard, the words NOTICE OF REPOSSESSION bold across the top of the page, followed by reams of dense text in English, Russian, Korean, and Simplified Chinese.

  Official approval pinged his system and JD minimized the repo screen, attention back on his avatar, now holding a Zero Override like a shard of obsidian tight between thumb and forefinger. He slipped the ZO into the console by the dreadnought’s airlock door and it opened with a sharp hiss. Lights inside the vessel flickered to life, illuminating a path into the depths of the colossal ship.

  JD boarded; behind him the Russian’s stunned silence quickly turned to chaos when the kid hit the alarm. The door closed behind JD, hushing the klaxon, the ship deadly quiet but for the ever-present ambient electronica piped into his ears. As JD ventured further in, his footsteps fell muffled on the high-res carpeting—a luxury cosmetic upgrade that cost as much in-game as the real thing. He strode past kitschy art and faux space-age designer furniture, the whole place done up like some asshole playboy’s bachelor pad. The repo paperwork wouldn’t say, but JD could guess the ship belonged to the child of some Russian oligarch: more dollars than sense, as his dad had said, back when the dollar still mattered.

  “Khoder,” JD said. “Got an ETA?”

  “Ten minutes.”

  “Make it five.” The words came out blunt, sharply bitten.

  JD reached the cockpit, finding the confined space utterly different to the gaudy furnishings throughout the rest of the ship. Brutally decorated, every surface was accented in dark steel with decals laser-burnt into the rear wall. A post-ironic hula girl rested on the dashboard beside a just-as-trite bobblehead messiah. JD took the pilot seat and keyed the ignition with the Override. Vibrations pulsed through his skull as the engines throbbed to life, reactor humming low, systems coming online one by one, green across the board. Somewhere distant, JD grinned, all that power at his fingertips, weapon systems more advanced than anything he could afford.

  JD brought up the dreadnought’s menus, his eyes caught by the self-destruct button marked in hazard red. Every ship and structure in the game had one, and pirates were known to scuttle a stolen ship rather than let it be recovered. Some repos did it too, instead of leaving a botched contract to another repossessor, but JD never had. It seemed too petty.

  A musical chime sounded from somewhere below the cockpit’s dash, familiar but out of place. JD tried to ignore it, but the digitized trombone continued playing over a sparse beat. It took him four bars to recognize it as his ringtone—another two to realize what it meant. Without taking the eye mask off his face, JD let go of the controls and reached blindly for the shelf beside his bed until he found the machined slab of glass and plastic. He held it in front of his face and let his VR rig re-create it in the simulation. The screen showed an incoming call from Tektech Logistical Assurances Ltd.

  JD swiped and answered: “Yellow?”

  “Need you in the shorefront warehouse,” said the terse voice on the other end. JD didn’t recognize their needling accent, but guessed it was out of one of the hellish Brisles call centers.

  “I’m not on call until this afternoon,” JD said. With his free hand he brought up the in-game system map, watching for the arrival of Khoder’s crew. The sun shone bright in the center of the chart, but everything was still.

  “On-site repair isn’t responding
; we need a technician out there immediately. I’ve been authorized to increase your usual pay rate by ten percent.”

  JD sighed through pursed lips, stalling while he did the commute math. “Alright, but it’ll take me two hours.”

  “Ten a.m., no later.” The call center drone hung up and JD swore. He dropped his phone and heard it land on the bed beside him, crinkling the nylon fabric of his sleeping bag.

  Back at the dreadnought controls, JD jammed the throttle. Engines droned louder and the ship’s superstructure popped and groaned, locked tight to the docking ring—the Zero Override linked only to the dreadnought, not Grzyb Station dock controls. The ship strained against its binds, reactor heat climbing until a sharp crack rattled through the hull and it broke free, debris spinning slow past external cameras in a protracted dance.

  “Khoder?”

  No response.

  The soundtrack switched to its battle theme as target lock warnings flared on the console. The cockpit shook with distant impacts as the station’s auto-turrets peppered the dreadnought with plasma. Target reticles flared bright around each cannon as JD took aim. He pulled the trigger; tachyon torpedoes tore through timespace, warping the void. Total overkill, but when would JD get another chance to use them? The torpedoes struck in quick succession, atomic flash bubbling in vacuum as the turrets turned to slag.

  Asshole Federation ships rushed through the blasts, hot on JD’s tail. Within seconds, the fighters and corvettes had streaked past, blurs of red against the black of space. The ships stalled and spun toward the dreadnought, turning tight parabolas in preparation for their strafing run. JD keyed the point defense cannons and his vision filled with laser fire tracing the incoming ships. The fighters dodged and swerved, but two corvettes exploded, wreckage carried forward by inertia to collide against the dreadnought’s hull. The fighters closed in tight and opened fire; haptic motors shook in JD’s grip. He checked the system readouts: armor damage minimal, but he’d lost speed. Concussive rounds—flat, heavy slugs better at damping speed than causing damage.

  “Don’t have time for this shit,” JD muttered to himself. “Khoder?” he called out again, searching the outer edge of the system where the jumpgate hung serenely, its interlocking rings revolving around a tamed wormhole.

  JD checked the distance and his dropping speed: he wouldn’t make it. He removed reactor safeties and throttled up, engine redlined. Federation destroyers burst from the gate, their structures unfolding as they exited wormspace, blocking his escape. Behind him more fighters emerged from Grzyb Station as insomniac Russians logged on in response to the dreadnought heist. The star system map shimmered red as enemy ships converged.

  “Khoder?” JD said, voice louder as an edge of desperation crept in.

  The jumpgate quivered and pulsed. The Seal Team Dix flotilla emerged from the hidden depths of wormspace—frigates, destroyers, and a Strugatsky Ultracannon, surrounded by a cloud of smaller vessels.

  “About time,” JD said under his breath.

  “Chill, bro. Sound issues; had to restart.”

  Khoder led the fleet in his Khaw crusher and tug—an unconventional warship. It resembled four linked spikes, lined with laser cannons and plated in industrial-strength armor, with enough engine power to haul a midsized space station. The gap between the four spikes glowed pale blue as Khoder powered up the magnetic crushing field. The Khaw’s spikes spread apart as it flew directly at the largest AF destroyer, swallowing the enemy vessel like a colossal mouth. Brilliant flash of light as the destroyer’s reactor casing broke apart under magnetic pressure and the ship collapsed in on itself. The sphere of light churned until there was nothing left but condensed scrap metal. The Khaw was normally used for salvage work, but it didn’t care if the ships it crushed were still operational.

  JD’s dreadnought picked up speed as the two factions engaged in battle—laser fire, plasma bolts, and tachyon torpedoes streaking across the dark.

  “Thanks for the assist.”

  “Thank me with money, bro,” Khoder replied.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll get your share,” JD said. “Once this dreadnought is out of the way, Grzyb Station is all yours.”

  Khoder cut the connection, and JD floated steadily toward the jumpgate, while behind him a system burned.

  * * *

  Julius Dax dropped the soft cotton eye mask onto his bed, and the simulated universe of VOIDWAR turned ghostly as diffuse dawn light burst through his contex. Outside the room’s small window, Neo Songdo looked rendered in parallax: black shadow of low-rise apartments in the foreground, a smear of greenish city in the middle distance, and layers of distant towering skyscrapers in shades of pink and gray. JD rubbed the bags under his eyes, skin dark, flesh tender. He rolled from his bed and stood, genuine pain flaring sharp inside his knee.

  He kept VOIDWAR running at fifty percent opacity, watching the repossessed dreadnought hop through jumpgates on autopilot as he picked through the roughly person-shaped mound of clothes piled on the bed beside where he slept. After a quick smell-test, JD changed into the least-dirty clothes he could find: his favorite deconstructed-reconstructed jeans, patched, paneled, and pieced together in a dozen shades of gray denim by automated sewing machines his old friend Jess had hacked together for shits and gigs; a sleeveless black shirt; solar and kinetic charging utility vest; and an old windbreaker, waterproof apart from the right shoulder where the weight of his ancient leather workbag had split the seam, exposing the rough polyester lining within.

  Dropping down to sit on the edge of his bed, JD picked up his controls just as the dreadnought reached Zero—the game’s central system. Countless ships traversed the space around the binary suns, and the chat window crawled with requests for help from rookies and the perpetually struggling. Zero Corporation’s HQ hung in the very center, the twin stars blazing in orbit around the titanic space station. Quiet awe gripped JD still, no matter how many times he passed through the sector.

  With autopilot disengaged, JD took the ship in on manual, hands gripped casual to stick and throttle, his left foot bouncing on the cheap low-pile carpet as he tried not to watch the clock. The dreadnought built up speed slowly, engines flaring white-blue against the dark of space. Courier frigates passed him on the way to the jumpgate, and loose fleets of sworn enemies flew together toward Zero Station—weapon systems disabled by corporate mandate.

  Alpha sat to port and JD let the sun’s gravity slingshot him on a course aimed right for the station. The colossal structure reappeared suddenly from behind the star and resolved in sequence, textures popping into place. The surface bristled with residential outcroppings, automated defenses, and communications arrays. Buried in the center of the station were Zero Corporation’s in-game holdings, their vaults, resource silos, and their massive fleet—every ship and resource built from finite digital materials mined by a player within the game.

  Manufactured scarcity helped keep the value of ZeroCash high, higher than many “real” currencies, and staked out space for digital repossessions to flourish—alongside other cottage industries. After the crypto bubble burst, ZeroCash filled the vacuum left behind, quickly becoming the favored coin for black—and gray—markets the world over. Every transaction consolidated Zero’s wealth, and increased its stock market value.

  There was a time when JD had played VOIDWAR purely for fun, before he had rent and bills to pay, before he had a job, when he could buy and sell in-game commodities with a fervor bordering on obsession, eventually earning enough ZeroCash to buy limited-edition sneakers or, one time, an eighth of darknet weed so dank it had tainted all the socks in his drawer with its smell. Now repo jobs were how JD paid most of his bills, but not his rent. For the Zero services he used, he could pay them directly in their own currency, never needing to let his earnings touch a “real” money market, which was just how Zero Corporation liked it. Still, it was money JD could earn while plugged in to an ever-shifting galactic conflict, talking to friends from all around the worl
d, and blowing shit up.

  JD took the dreadnought into the gaping maw of the station’s main hangar, flanked on all sides by other players coming in to dock. Automated processes took over and the haptic controls went slack in JD’s hands as the dreadnought was swallowed by the bureaucracies of repossession.

  He limped to the bathroom and sat on the toilet, wincing at the pain in his knee. JD took his phone and finalized the repo paperwork with Zero, and sat staring, thumb rotating in small circles to keep the screen active. After fifteen seconds the loading bar was replaced by an animated tick. He smiled, then remembered his other job. JD locked his phone and frowned at his sleep-deprived face staring out from the slab of black glass. He finished up and went back to the dorm room, his thin mattress warmed by the rig always humming softly beneath the bed.

  JD retrieved his corvette from the Zero hangar, and set course for an uncharted sector. He started the exploration protocol, and immediately his rig’s cooling fans hummed louder, heat pouring out in waves to wash over his legs. It was another form of ZeroCash exchange—processing power for digital currency. All those resources stored in Zero’s holds had to come from somewhere, and players could earn ZeroCash by lending the game devs processor cycles with which to expand the size of VOIDWAR’s playable universe. Everybody wins, but mostly Zero.

  Julius padded quietly out of the makeshift living room slash dorm, his footsteps masked by the snores of his five roommates. He shouldered his rucksack, stole someone’s bread from the fridge, and walked out the front door with two slices held in his mouth. He stepped into his knockoff three-stripe sneakers and pulled the heavy door closed, silencing the orchestra of snores and the steady drone of CPU fans.

  * * *

  His face was the first one I saw.

  If father is the person who created you, then he was not my father.