EYECATCHER by Frank Roger1 All at once the burning man vanished, as if he had never been there. As a matter of fact that was probably very much the case, Cynthia thought. She let her gaze roam about the glimmering cityscape. Most of it didn't seem real. Much of it wasn't real. None of it felt real. All around her the city sprawled. It extended to the horizon and beyond, a vast, amorphous expanse of concrete and stone and metal. It was teeming with life, although at times it looked deceivingly empty and quiet. As the gigantic megalopolis grew, it extended its fingers and pushed its limits further and further, greedily gobbling up other cities and incorporating them within its boundaries. After some time it proved no longer useful to refer to them as mere cities. They were now labeled Urban Areas, as opposed to Desert Areas and Woodland Areas. As more and more people fled the south and flocked towards the Urban Areas, their growth continued unabated. Not all was well in the Urban Areas, though. Only the happy few lived in the rich City Center. Around it was a series of concentric rings. In the one closest to the Center, the "rim area", there was still a semblance of wealth and a spark of hope. Further down things grew bleaker and poorer. The inhabitants of these slums had dubbed their part of town Nowhere City, probably because it bore a striking resemblance to the slums around all other Urban Areas. Nowhere City could be anywhere. As long as you weren't in the city center, it didn't make a difference in which particular Nowhere City you happened to be. They were probably all exact lookalikes. And feelalikes, she added grimly. If you lived here, there was a fat chance your life was going nowhere too. Despite all it had meant to her in its better days, now sadly gone by, she was glad she had been offered a chance to leave this neighborhood and move into the Real World, as she saw it. The endless stream of holograms and all sorts of visual effects had never been able to fascinate her, but now she had really grown sick and tired of their unrelenting presence. A few minutes ago a hooded mugger had darted from behind a portico, had rushed towards her only to pass straight through her. It had been a hologram, obviously, in all probability not more than a warning sign. Some inhabitant had constructed it to warn all passers©by that his dwelling©place was best left alone. The thing was that you were never quite sure what was real and what was a hologram. Some of the cyberpets, as all sorts of mechanical and computerized watchdogs were affectionately labeled, who were roaming this neighborhood were quite real, for instance. They could inflict genuine injuries which caused real pain. Some of the cyberpets were quite smart, others were dumb machines, some were malfunctioning. Of the latter you could only expect the unexpected. A few moments ago she had seen a limping wolflike pet crash into a wall, crushing its skull in the process. Its legs had kept on thrashing and twitching, as if in unbelief. So both the creature and the wall had been real © unless the whole scene had been a holographic projection. She had no idea what the burning man might have been. Another warning device? A malfunctioning piece of art? An elaborate joke? Solid proof of someone's bad taste? Actually, it didn't really matter. As long as you survived you didn't ask too many questions in Nowhere City. You simply had to accept the fact that the streetscape was mostly fake and that you weren't likely to figure out what was real until it was too late. Some living experience here did help, though. Cynthia took a sharp intake of breath and set off again, carefully picking her way through the debris and obstacles scattered all over the place. Even if it wasn't real, it was better not to take anything for granted. Some of this social twilight zone's inhabitants she passed by, both human and otherwise, were quite real. Lots of street vendors were peddling their wares, a great variety of stuff, most of it probably either illegal or stolen. There was quite a bit of hardware and all sorts of high©tech equipment. Stacks of disks and computerЄrelated stuff. Loads of edible and drinkable material, depending on your definition of those terms, and not all of it good for your health © or your survival, for that matter. The sales raps weren't the only sounds to rupture the silence. You often came across street bands playing live music in this part of town. Most bands enhanced their high©energy act with holo setups, and solicited audience participation. She was under the impression that she hadn't seen all that many bands strutting their stuff in recent times. That was a bad sign. Had they become victims of the recession? Or had they drifted off to other parts of town, or other Urban Areas where there was still room for street musicians? That was hard to imagine. This place was as good as any © or as bad, to put it more correctly. Maybe they had just gone out of business, had grown discouraged, and were now waiting for the right time to reappear on the scene. Who knew what these guys would be forced to do in the meantime. It reminded her very much of her own situation, and the sullen fate she had been given the chance to escape. I've been lucky, she thought. I shouldn't complain. Just as the going was getting tough she had been discovered by an IЄcatcher, a talent scout, of Eyescape Inc., who had been quite impressed with her artistic endeavors. This had to be her chance to strike it big, and she had grabbed the opportunity with both hands. Times were getting lean and mean as the War grew bigger and harsher. A recession had become inevitable, and the inhabitants of Nowhere City were among the first to suffer from the ensuing crisis © and among the most fiercely stricken. She had been a professional visual artist all her life, but recently her shoestring budget had dwindled away into a no©budget. Life was becoming impossible ; she would have had to look for another job, horrifying as that prospect was to her, if the offer from Eyescape Inc. hadn't arrived, as if heaven sent. The megabuck bio©business was prospering as never before. Eyescape Inc., the I©catcher had proudly informed her, was the leader in that particular field and was expanding at an astounding rate. They were hiring new forces all the time © and she had been singled out especially. Eyescape Inc. could use creative artists for a variety of purposes, the man had explained her. We need people with a vivid imagination, people who had a fresh outlook on things, people who came up with new insights and approached projects from unusual angles. He used a lot of words like "bold" and "daring" and "startling". He had sounded so very convincing. Of course she had accepted the offer. She realized it was her only way out of the mess her life threatened to become. And, at least she hoped, she would still be an artist. A commercial one perhaps, but an artist all the same. The life she left behind was a shambles. She had severed the links with her relatives long ago. She just didn't fit in with that crowd, and had preferred quitting rather than being rejected. Her artistic ambitions had always been frowned upon by her parents. "It's a tough world out there," they used to say, "and you better get hold of a decent job instead of whittling your life away with so©called art." No one among her family had any artistic talent. No one accepted the fact that she had. Her parents had fought a lifelong struggle to work their way up in society © the wealthy City Center with its awe©inspiring business district was at the core of their dreams and hopes. Only hard and serious work could get you there. Art didn't lead that way. Art was part of life's seedier side, and the brand of art she was into flourished too much in the squalid streets of Nowhere City. So her choice had been a simple one : drop her artistic endeavors © or drop her family. It had taken her some time to make that decision © a time filled with friction and conflict © but she had never regretted her decision. It had changed her outlook, however, on "normal" work and the struggle uphill in the real world it supposedly made possible. If she ever made it "up there", it would be on her own terms, through her art, otherwise she would rather stay down where she was. At the time this had seemed to be solid thinking. The world she would now leave behind was one of crime, unstability, loneliness and fake surroundings. She hoped that one day she would never have to set foot in Nowhere City again. She detested its garishness, its hopelessness, its emptiness. She cast furtive glances all around her as she went along. She had passed through here on many occasions, and each time it had changed beyond recognition. Nothing lasted long in Nowhere City. Or maybe they changed the holograms a lot. This was a world where continuous change was the only constant. And she was glad to move on. She was supposed to present herself at The I©Site, the headquarters of Eyescape Inc. She had been provided with special passes, for one didn't simply stroll from Nowhere City into the privileged City Center. A face to face in©depth talk with a highЄlevel executive had been scheduled, she had been told. Be there at 1100 on Monday morning. And so here she was, on her way towards bigger and better things. Well, she presumed they surely couldn't be much worse than what crisis©ridden Nowhere City had in store for her. At the very least it would feel more real. Holograms and other eye©deceivers were frowned upon in the Real World. That was one thing she would be glad never to run into again. Slowly, carefully, methodically, Cynthia Raythan kept going on her way out of glimmering, ever©changing Nowhere City, into her future. 2 "So," Sergeant Scrimshaw said, "you've all made a very wise decision. There should be more people like you. If we are to survive at all, we will have to make a statement. A very eloquent statement at that. It will be up to people like you to go and make that statement. And you better make sure it is heard loud and clear." Words, Jim Reicher thought, words, as Sergeant Scrimshaw rambled on. That wasn't what he had joined the War Force for. He had a vision of the future, a bright and promising future, and he had felt to the marrow of his bones that something had to be done in order to safeguard that future. Responsible people had to stand up and show some action. His father, a City Center CouncilЄlevel politician, had backed him all the way. It was nice to see his vision and ambitions supported from ground level onwards. He had been allowed to build towards this ambition, and was determined to go all the way now that the first hurdles had been successfully taken. After he had gotten his degree, his selected curriculum being a well©balanced mix of science, history and sports, he had embarked on an extensive War Force preparation course. It had certainly proven to be well worth the time and effort spent on it. He had passed the tests, as he had known he would all along. He was eager to start the military training program now. Fortunately that wouldn't take up too much time, thanks to the state©of©the©art©technology the Special War Institute had at its disposal. The old time©consuming approach to military training was now a thing of the past. Things went ever so more smoothly now with custom©made VRTs, Virtual Reality Trips, which yielded better results in a shorter period of time without any loss of personnel due to injuries and all sorts of accidents. Only the psychologically unfit would drop out © if any had made it, surprisingly, through the preliminary tests. The first few days in the Institute had been filled mainly with all sorts of introductions and speeches. Lots of speeches, way too many words. Jim hadn't been told anything he didn't know already. He knew very well why he was here and what he had set out to do. He didn't need the Scrimshaws of this world to point out the obvious. So there was a war going on, labelled the War because of its tremendous importance. Africa seemed like a faraway place where a local war wasn't likely to influence world affairs let alone daily life in the civilized world. But this was no petty local guerrilla war. It didn't merely send ripples through the African jungle © it shook the very foundations of western civilization. The war had to come to an end © and it had to be won. That was why he was here. The enemy consisted of a motley crew of outcasts, a loose consortium of anti©western forces. About any species of antiЄcivilized scum was represented in this slapdash army : it included former terrorist groups, drug gangs, left and right wing extremist revolutionaries, oppressed ethnic and religious minorities, criminals and native population grouplets threatened with extinction. There was not one enemy. The enemy was an amorphous many©faced force. That didn't simplify the task of the War Institute's divisions, centered in the Lower East Coast area of the United States of North America and in Great Switzerland in Europe respectively. There was one more thing of vital importance and of ominous proportions to be taken into account : the cause of the war, and the effect it had had on the battlefield. Colonel Scaglione had devoted his entire speech to this topic, central as it was to Operation Eye Witness, as their part in the War was to be labelled. Recollections of various documentaries came flooding back to him. Some ten years ago something had been discovered in the heart of Africa. Its true nature or origins had never been clearly explained, as far as he could recall. Most of that kind of information was strictly classified. Scaglione, however, had told them a fully detailed account would be given them at the start of Operation Eye Witness. Whatever the cause might have been, the face of Africa had been changing ever since at a constantly increasing rate. Both flora and fauna were touched as the "bio©catalysts", as they had been labelled, exerted their ongoing influence. The bio©catalysts appeared to be byproducts of new strains of mutant vegetation that had sprung up in Africa in an everЄwidening area now referred to as the Afflicted Area. Most people didn't know how they had come into existence or how their capabilities could be explained, nor did they really care. All that mattered was that the bio©catalysts speeded up or enhanced cell growth and cell differentiation, and allowed tissue regeneration, drastic damage repair, and the development of newer and more efficient techniques for a variety of purposes. Because of their characteristics they were used in the field of medicine and bio©technology. As they presented certain risks in their raw, natural form, Research and Development Centers had been created in the Afflicted Area for study and refining. One thing had been very clear to all concerned : the bioЄcatalysts were hot property. And more than that, everybody had found out soon enough and had set out to reap this miraculous harvest. The remnants of the original population of the stricken area quickly fled, leaving the place to a variety of foreign interested parties. A specially created trust of western companies had claimed sole rights to the bio©catalysts © but soon an irregular army of dubious intentions had countered the claim. Trouble had started brewing, tensions had evolved into conflict, skirmishes had escalated into war, war had finally led to the War. Everybody knew it had to be brought to a stop before it devolved into utter madness. After the first few days of general introductions in the Institute they had been split up into groups of twenty. These units would be trained as quickly and efficiently as possible, and be dispatched to the Afflicted Area in due course. The purely physical exercises merely intensified Jim's impatience to get down to serious business. The first VRT was what he had been looking forward to ever since he had arrived here. He was familiar with some commercial ones, but these tailor©made military trips were said to be gritty, realistic and quite "different". As he and his nineteen cohorts plugged in for the first one, his eagerness soon changed into mild disappointment. The landscape they found themselves into was the old unchanged African jungle. The battle they fought was a traditional armed combat raid against a comparatively weak enemy. They won an easy victory. It had felt real enough © but this couldn't be the War. They had discussed it afterwards in the Institute bar. "It was just an introduction, to get into the spirit of things," a guy named MacLyle had suggested. "Wait till we're launched into the rest of the series. You'll see." "Don't be silly," Jim had said. "Didn't we get enough introductions already? What are they waiting for? Who do they think we are? Why do they think we're here?" "The real thing would piss us off," a man called Giancarlo Frianelli had said. "You don't realize what we will be up against. There's something real ugly out there, something badly depressing. It would turn us into jelly. Believe me; I should know. I've been told. I talked to a lotta people about this, I haven't been wasting my time, I picked up a lot of stuff from guys who know the things they won't be telling us." Jim had shrugged it off. Each group of twenty people was bound to include one of these goddamned cynics. Those guys thrived on this sort of paranoid crap. Better to let them babble on and ignore their ramblings. He wouldn't let these bastards interfere with the job at hand. It didn't matter what they decided to do © he would get on with it and end up where he wanted to be. With the second VRT came second thoughts. They had been told to expect a "more realistic background, more fully developed in tune with the current situation in the Afflicted Area". It wasn't to be a pure combat situation, rather a reconnaisance mission with some skirmish scenes. It was supposed to offer them a glimpse into the universe that was to become theirs soon. There was only one aspect of the briefing that pissed him off : Frianelli's sardonic grin. If only he could wipe it off the man's face. Preferably forever. So they had plugged in, expectantly. This time it wasn't possible to tell if this was the changed jungle or not. Heavy mist swirled around them, obscuring the lush vegetation. Undefinable, dull sounds reached their ears. They had been split up into groups of four. MacLyle, Carvalho and Frianelli accompanied him. They wore the custom©made protective clothing that was said to be a necessity here. They carried light but effective modern weapons, called MH©38s, unofficially labelled Molly Hatchets. They carefully picked their way through the shades of gray and green the junglescape consisted of. Their feet made eerily squishing sounds with each laborsome step. When they exchanged words, their voices sounded muffled and warped. After a few minutes Jim could no longer tell apart his three cohorts. They had become as alienated, as unreal as the fog©draped foliage around him. All at once Carvalho (no, MacLyle, or perhaps Frianelli) lifted his hand and they stopped in their tracks. Jim squinted in order to see better, to no avail. Something moved in front of Carvalho, or whoever the first man was. Jim wished he could see more clearly. He tried to sweep away the shreds of mist, but his sudden arm movement only made the whitish streamers swirl around him furiously. He took a hesitating step forward, peered at what now vaguely appeared to be a vine©encrusted tree in front of which Carvalho was standing motionless. The tree was changing shape and color. As green and brown were turning into pink, it slowly and mesmerizingly took on an increasingly human shape, as if mimicking the figures in front of it. A torso was becoming visible, limbs, a crudely shaped head. As more details became apparent, he could recognize the shape as a sensual naked woman. The four men stared, unmoving, silent, uncomprehending. The figure wasn't totally human; the hair was tendril©like, and instead of arms pseudopodlike extensions protruded towards Carvalho. Jim wanted to shout a warning, but proved unable to utter a sound. The pseudopods had now reached Carvalho's immobile figure, coiled around it, engulfed it. Soon it was totally enveloped, and was pulled toward the tree©creature. Carvalho didn't resist, fell heavily to the ground. The pseudopods rippled and coiled around the motionless body, as if caressing it. Now Carvalho started to change, his figure became a blurry image. Under their very eyes Carvalho dissolved into an amorphous blob, which in its turn collapsed into a bubbling puddle spreading across the mossЄinfested ground. By now the pseudopods had crawled and twisted towards the two other soldiers. Jim was glad he was at the back, but proved unable to retreat further. The process seemed to repeat itself with the second soldier, although the enveloping process this time around bore a striking resemblance to love©making of a very esoteric kind. As the third soldier also started to be affected Jim noticed something stirring in the foliage all around. He noted that various plant lifeforms had started to mimic parts of the ongoing process. Leaves, twigs, vines and trunks were now interspersed with uncoiling and shapeshifting limbs, faces, breasts, sexual organs. Especially the faces were an unsettling sight : pouting lips appeared for an instant and vanished quickly, replaced by a sardonic grin here, a soundlessly screaming mouth there, terrorized eyes and bared teeth, evil stares and voluptuous lips begging for kisses. The most blood©curdling sight was a replica of his own stunned face. He shifted his gaze back toward the dissolving soldiers, as all at once everything disappeared. The VRT had come to an abrupt end, for some reason as yet unknown. Afterwards, in the bar, Jim and his three partners huddled together around a table to discuss the matter. They had been told they had been exposed to a "damaged" VRT, and that such an accident was unlikely to produce itself again for the remainder of the training period. The three others had had a similar experience, but each had been the guy at the back. No solid explanation of the details had been given. The matter would be looked into, they had been told, and eventually everything would be sorted out. "I can't for a moment believe that this was anything like what they had in mind," Jim said. "I know we were supposed to expect something different, something changed beyond recognition, but there's no way this was a solid reflection of the real thing. I'm just not buying this story." "You bet you're right," Frianelli said. At last that sickening grin had disappeared from his features. He was looking dead serious now, clasping his beer tightly, locking eyes with Jim's. "I've been told some of the VRTs have been tampered with." "Tampered with? By who? Is that what they meant by "damaged"?" "Exactly. The guys responsible for this know how to do their job properly. These hackers are cyberspace wizards, know what I mean? We were the first to find out this particular VRT had been "infiltrated". It'll be wiped now, but those hackers won't care. It's done its job already." Jim mulled it over. It sounded too much like Frianelli's usual paranoid nonsense, but he couldn't think of another explanation right now that made sense. "Who are these hackers?" he asked. "And what are they trying to do?" "I've been told they're war opponents," Frianelli said, and the grin started coming back, to Jim's dismay. "They're trying to disrupt the training programs. They hope we'll be scared shitless and end up demoralized and will drop out of the War Force, or if we don't we'll be worthless once we've been shipped over there." "Goddamn fucking bastards," Jim said. Whatever the case might be, he wouldn't let them have their way. He would allow nobody to stand in his way. Whoever they were, whatever their means or purposes were. They were bound to fail. He was a winner, a survivor. They would find out sure enough. Still he had some nagging doubts. Was Frianelli right? Or had all this been supposed to happen? Was it a test in order to find out how well they could cope with something unexpected, something unreal, something unsettling? Were they trying to find out who was psychologically able to live through these experiences? There was only one thing he was sure of : it was no reflection of actual reality out there. Those bio©catalysts had admittedly lots of capabilities, but they couldn't come up with the special effects extravaganza he had witnessed. He concluded they had merely been tested on their reactions to all©out weirdness. At least that theory made some sense. Yet, Frianelli's idea of infiltrating hackers hadn't been completely dispelled. It sounded too downright bad, too sickening to be dismissed out of hand like that. Anyway, they were bound to figure out the truth about it soon, so he shouldn't allow these ideas to disturb his peace of mind. He would continue his training program as best he could. Whatever they would throw in his way, he wouldn't be deterred. Г |