That was why she was getting all the attention. Most of these guys were in here for online sex, and she represented the newest technology. They were after some high-resolution in-and-out with her. She was both flattered and nauseated by the thought. Scanning the area around her, she found a lot of eyes on her body, men and women, some horny and some just curious. She counted a few others who had obviously upgraded, maybe one in twenty players at this point. TyroSoft predicted that in one month the penetration would be close to ninety percent.
It had been stupid to upgrade so early. She was here on surveillance, for crying out loud, trying to be stealthy, not sexy, and she stuck out like one incredibly desirable sore thumb.
On the other hand, maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.
Winking at her dance partner, she spun away from him and began walking the perimeter of the club. She found an opening at the bar and ordered a vodka and tonic and then resumed her patrol, although she had to stop every ten feet or so to deny a request for dancing or sex or both. Sally was becoming irritated, waving away suitors like gnats.
There: dark blue shirt with a yellow stripe. He was standing three bodies out from the bar, talking with a couple of blondes. Coyne had made the upgrade as well, she noticed, and she wondered if he also had cheated on his looks a bit, chiseling those cheekbones and squaring that jaw when he redid his avatar. Her investigation hadn’t turned up a photo. The real Sam Coyne was probably a stereotypical fantasy player: short, fat, and bald.
She watched him from this safe distance, simply ignoring the propositions when they came now and taking small sips from her glass to make the drink last. She’d feel conspicuous standing here alone and without a drink, and she was afraid of losing sight of him if she had to go back to the bar.
He became focused on one of the girls now, his eyes boring into her. One blonde tried to inch her way into his line of sight, but he seemed more and more interested in her friend. They were too far away for Barwick to hear what they were saying (sound in the game carried about the same distance as it did in real life), but it seemed to her to be all smiling and flirting. Sam Coyne was a charming man, it seemed.
He looked up from between the two blonde heads and made eye contact with Sally. Not a casual glance, but a long, unbroken connection. Barwick was slow to look away, and then it was too late to do anything but return his gaze and look indifferent. She didn’t, apparently, seem indifferent enough.
In a matter of seconds he had excused himself from the blondes and they turned and pouted as Coyne made his way over to Sally. This wasn’t what she wanted, but she couldn’t run. And what did she expect would happen when she walked into this bar, anyway? Sally realized too late that she had no plan.
“Hello, I’m Sam,” he said. Sally noticed another benefit of the upgrade. The lip sync was almost perfect. Forget about flesh, she thought. Even dirty talk would be sexier in the new Shadow World.
“Sam, hi,” she said. “I’m Sally.”
If he was a TTL, and he looked anything like this in real life, Sam Coyne, attorney-at-law, was quite a catch. Wavy blond hair. A big white smile. Athletic waist and thighs. Coyne might be the Shadow World thrill killer, but she was finding it harder and harder to buy into Justin’s thinking. She’d met a lot of serious gamers and this guy was too good to be true.
“Sally, do you want to dance?” he asked.
Did she? Heck, it’s a crowded club. “Sam, sure,” she said.
Coyne was better than a decent dancer, although she acknowledged that dancing in the game was all fingers and wrists – a different skill set than dancing in a real club. It still took rhythm, though, and he had it. As he moved on her screen, she couldn’t help seeing in him something like what men had been seeing in her all night. Casual sex wasn’t Barwick’s thing, in Shadow World or in life, but she was attracted to him. Or to his avatar, anyway. Of course, the avatar was a real man as far as Shadow Sally was concerned, and whether or not danger had anything to do with it, Shadow Sally was turned on. And he was picking up on it.
After just one song, he leaned in next to her ear and said, “Sally, do you feel like going for a walk?” She had been playing the game long enough to know what that meant. She was scared. Excited and scared. She needed that plan now.
Barwick had entered the Jungle to spy on Coyne, not to bait him. Or become another of his victims. She had a life here in Shadow World, a life she loved as much as its mirror in the alternate universe of the real world. She simply couldn’t risk it all chasing the crackpot whim of a high school kid she barely knew. She had to give Sam Coyne the same answer she’d give in real life if he asked her to go somewhere for quick and meaningless sex.
“Sam, no,” she said. “Thanks, but no.”
He stared at her for a minute as if others in this situation had changed their minds in the line of his hypnotic pupils. She didn’t doubt they had.
“All right, Sally,” Coyne said. “Some other time.” She watched him turn and walk back to the bar where one of the two blondes was still waiting. At just a word, she hopped off her stool and followed him toward the coat check. Sally waited until they were lost between bodies in the crowd, then set off after them.
Her escape from the dance floor was as littered with oversexed obstacles as her entrance, however. “No. No. No thank you. God, no! ” she insisted to one poorly rendered avatar after another until she finally reached the cold air outside. Snow had begun to fall. At her computer, Barwick looked out the window. The flakes were just beginning to stick to the boxwood outside. She marveled again how the Shadow World programmers were able to make the world on her screen so responsive and complex.
It was nearing last call and the bouncer had left, locking the entrance door behind him. The sad crowd of boys on the sidewalk were gone. The street was visible for several blocks in either direction, but she couldn’t see Coyne or the blonde. Sally began walking to the Camry, her head twisting in all directions, but a hand on her arm stopped her. Justin was out of the car.
“Sally, they walked into that building!” he said. “Across the tracks!” Barwick looked in the direction he was pointing and saw a large tin garage used by a private disposal company to warehouse garbage trucks.
“Eww,” she said. “Are you kidding me?”
“Maybe he’s testing out a new technique,” Justin said, looking over his shoulder as Sally tried to keep up with him in her heels. “Or maybe he’s done this very thing dozens of times as the Wicker Man, in the real world. Maybe he dumps the bodies with the garbage, and they’re never found. Who knows what his body count might be?”
Barwick didn’t buy it. “Sex next to a garbage truck has got to be an in-game-only fetish,” she said. “Stink doesn’t go through the computer. Besides, I’m not so sure this guy’s a TTL.”
“Why?” Justin asked.
“He’s too good looking.”
In his bedroom, Justin smiled.
A door to the giant tin barn was left open and Justin and Sally slipped inside. Dozens of blue trucks were lined up in rows, ready to make their rounds in just a few hours. A few fluorescent lights were on, high in the rafters, and they could hear loud echoes – a man and woman breathing and giggling – from somewhere inside the barn. Barwick put a finger to her lips and Justin understood. If we can hear them, they can hear us.
They walked with gentle footfalls up and down the rows, and the sounds from Coyne and the blonde became louder and more passionate, but they couldn’t tell if they were just inches away or dozens of yards. The crazy acoustics of the metal roof and walls, and the directional limitations of their headsets, limited their ability to home in.
Until they heard the blonde screaming.
“That way!” Justin whispered, running off before Sally could get her bearings. She slipped her heels off and followed the screams, which became more and more angry.
You sonofabitch! You sonofabitch! You goddamn crazy sonofabitch!
At least she wasn’t a True-to-Lifer, Barwick thought. If she were a TTL, the screams would be more terrified. More real. This chick’s just pissed.
Ten seconds later Sally ran right into Justin’s back. He was frozen between the front and rear bumpers of two garbage trucks. Because he was six inches taller than she was, Sally couldn’t get a look at anything on the other side of him.
“I can’t see!” Justin whispered desperately. “I’m blind here. I can’t see!”
It took Sally a moment to figure out what he meant. This was a fine time for his computer to freeze, or for a glitch in the software to show itself. He turned to face her. “I can see you,” he said. “But I can’t see out there.” Then she understood. Around the corner, there must be a scene so deranged or sexually explicit (or both) that it
