“Where am I?”
“Safe. Back in Melbourne, of course.”
“Safe?”
“As houses.”
While Gonzo proceeded to chuckle away at some unshared joke, Jacob shook his head, attempting to clear the cobwebs.
“Fuck,” he whispered. Nothing happened.
“Come with me,” Gonzo said, giving Jacob his arm. “You need to start walking this off, get the circulation flowing. You can carry the IV.”
The two of them moved out of that miniature, ill-lit room into a familiar hallway, filthy-looking, with broken floorboards and mildewed, peeling wallpaper that had Victorian illustrations of angel’s trumpets or moonflowers. The atmosphere felt heavy, humid, and the sound of torrential rain was somewhere close by.
“You joined Heropa at a bad time,” Gonzo disclosed. “We’ve been having no end of hassle with the mainframe — thing went rogue on us. We use old gear, hand-me-downs and complete junk, so I’m hardly surprised — William Gibson would roll in his grave. Hitting reset doesn’t seem to work anymore. I’m sure we’ll get the glitches ironed out, but meanwhile there’ve been some…complica-tions.”
“People dying.”
“Hell, no! Nothing that serious. Not exactly — but, well, complications.”
“Like the Rat?”
Gonzo stopped assisting and looked down, eyebrows knotted, as he wiped hair from his face. “Are you talking about Tom?”
“Kid my age, resembling a rat? We met when I came here, and he was with you when I showed my picture of Southern Cross.”
“Tom. What do you know?”
“Pretty sure he doubles-up under the name of Crosshairs in Heropa, right?”
“I’m not supposed to say.”
“Well. Looks like some sniper killed Crosshairs — using their own crosshairs.”
Staring up at the distant ceiling, Gonzo chewed his lower lip at the same time he rubbed his chin. The man needed a facial. “Shit, so that’s it. Sometimes you get a day like this when nothing goes right.”
“Let me guess — this isn’t the first ‘complication’.”
“No. Dammit!”
Gonzo helped Jacob to the next room along, another tiny, parti-tioned-off cubicle. A familiar figure with terrible skin laid prostate on a camp bed, a blanket pulled up to his neck. The Rat/Tom/Crosshairs. This teenager appeared to be alive, eyes half open, but there was nothing behind them — dead without being clinically proclaimed thus.
“How long?” Jacob asked.
“About ten minutes before you woke up. I know the symptoms. Seen them far too often lately.”
“Ten minutes? There was only a second or so between his…demise…and me accidentally hitting eject.”
Gonzo shrugged. “For some reason, it takes longer to revive naturally than via unnatural means. Can’t account for the glitch.”
“Will he recover?”
“I doubt it. No one else has. We now have twenty people like this — what the fuck is happening down there?”
Still looking at the Rat, Jacob murmured, “Someone was killing off the great Capes of Heropa.”
“Jesus H. Christ…Murder? — In Heropa? Is that possible?”
“What were you thinking? That twenty people copped fatal accidents at the same time?”
“No!” The man acted sheepish. “Then we need to shut down the system.”
“Don’t do that.” Jacob held onto the other man’s shoulder, still frail, and looked him in the eye. “Listen to me — not yet. I don’t think it’s appropriate. There’s a lot at stake.”
“Why the hell not? People are dropping like flies out here!”
“I think we nailed the culprit. But I need to be sure.”
“You? You’re out.”
“No, I’m going back in.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Working on it. But we need time to sort out what’s going on. Can I return to Heropa early?
“Server won’t let you — you need to pay the piper for the swearing misdemeanour, even if every other online system’s gone snafu.”
“Can’t you override it?”
“I’m not a magician. The only way would be a complete shutdown.”
“Crap.” Jacob blew out benumbed cheeks, trying to get some sort of feeling happening there. “Okay, I’ll have to wait. Is the Reset working again?”
“Offline, like the passwords. Then again, I thought swearing was out, too.” Gonzo eased Jacob down to a wooden box on which to sit.
“I need to see the Big O.”
“Me too. He’s still in Heropa — right?”
Jacob looked up, checking the man’s face for some sense of sarcasm, but saw only confusion. “You do know he was the second victim, not long after the Aerialist?”