The Illusionists Read online

  She wondered idly if she should get up and try to find Wren. She had no idea what time it was. Would he even be here?

  Then she realised she was hungry, and that decided it.

  She came out of her room. Much like Red House, her old university living quarters, everyone in this building lived in separate rooms but shared the ‘communals’ – the kitchen, bathrooms and the social room, where people ate and held parties. But the doors all looked the same, and everything was exact and placed just so; it made her shrink back from imposing herself so much on this place as to dare to move around in it as if she belonged here.

  She pressed on a random door, hoping it would open. It did, and beyond it, to her relief, was the social room. Two people looked up as she came in. Neither was Wren, though she recognised them vaguely from the past few days.

  Rue stopped, embarrassed. She did her best to smile at them, though it must have come out crooked. One of them, a girl, jumped up and returned the smile and opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it as she remembered.

  Pressing a hand to her chest, she said, ‘Sabine.’

  Rue understood that well enough. ‘Rue,’ she said, pointing to herself.

  Sabine smiled. She had gleaming caramel-coloured skin, and her hair was rolled into long, swaying tails, the tips of which grazed her elbows when she walked. She looked magnificent, and completely out of place in this dull, grey room. Rue wondered when she herself might be able to learn how to change her appearance like that.

  Sabine’s friend was a young man (or old, Rue reminded herself, as augmentation made everyone look young) with carefully placed ridges and bumps running the length of his face and neck, and presumably the rest of his body, in various patterns. He had a starburst of little bulbous ridges on his cheek. He looked her up and down quite openly, and inside she rolled her eyes. Wren had warned her of it – every Worlder would find her simple, unaltered appearance strange, but for some it might even border on offensive. Only Technophobes proudly displayed no augmentation, and they stuck out like a sore thumb.

  ‘Oh, not the Technophobes,’ Wren had said, when Rue pressed him about the word. ‘They’re this protest group who think Life is evil, or something of the sort. I think they’re religious. They have their implants removed illegally and go off-grid. They attack people for no reason. All kinds of strange things.’

  In the meantime, Rue would have to endure the stares. She returned the young man’s gaze directly until he dropped his eyes. Let him think she was rude – it was only a mirror of himself.

  Sabine spoke. ‘Lars,’ she said, pointing at the man, who managed a sharp cross between a nod and a shrug.

  Rue ventured a little further into the room, then looked around.

  In the study at Red House where she was taught in Angle Tar, they had a huge array of books on shelves, a wicker chest stuffed with games, a cupboard full of art materials. But this room was as bare as could be, much like everything she had seen so far in World. She looked around at the walls for the black square shape of a food device, but couldn’t see one, and stood uncertainly. Even if she found it she wouldn’t know how to work it, but she didn’t want to ask these two strangers for help. How would she even get them to understand what she wanted?

  Sabine was looking at her, as if trying to work out what she was thinking.

  Lars said something, speaking unintelligible World with a bored-sounding voice. Sabine answered him, and they talked for a moment. Rue slid awkwardly onto a seat near the door, not quite knowing what to do with herself.

  Being around Worlders was strange – more often than not they seemed elsewhere. She knew this was because they spent most of the time hooked into the invisible, tantalising world of Life, a world she wouldn’t be able to see until she’d learned how to use the box.

  As Talented, it was easy enough for her to understand that Worlders could see a place inside their head where they didn’t physically exist. Rue loved that about World; more than the technology, more than the unfathomable things they did to their bodies, more than the incredible machines they liked so much to create that made their lives an effortless glide.

  Sabine kept throwing Rue a glance, as if she was repeatedly considering trying to talk to her. Rue hoped she wouldn’t. It was hard enough having to sit and listen without being able to join in, but when mime was resorted to, things became plain strange.

  So there they sat.

  She wondered if they both had a day off today, and where they worked, and what they did, and whether their parents looked as young as they did with all this augmentation floating around, and whether that bothered them. She was sure it would have bothered her if Fernie, her old hedgewitch mistress, had looked young and pretty. But thinking about Fernie and Angle Tar squashed her heart and gave her pain, so she moved on.

  Wren had said he would introduce her to his manager; a woman called Greta Hammond, who sounded like she fulfilled much the same role as Frith had in Angle Tar. Greta was apparently part of a team responsible for the small but steadily growing numbers of Talented who were recruited to World’s government programme and put to work using their special gifts. Wren was one of her star acquisitions – a Talented Angle Tarain lured away by the glittering promise of World.

  Much like Rue.

  She supposed if this Greta Hammond liked the look of her she might be enrolled in a school or training programme here, too, and meet another Talented group she would have to get used to. At least here she would have Wren, and she wouldn’t have to make a start in this place all alone.

  Just as she was thinking of Wren, he walked into the room. She grinned and ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck.

  ‘Really,’ he said with a laugh. His strange silver eyes rested on hers. ‘I wasn’t gone very long.’

  ‘Wren, I can’t wait to learn the language here.’

  ‘Then I have just the thing you need. Want to try it?’

  ‘Yes! Right now.’

  Sabine asked him something, her eyes flicking between them. He answered, and they laughed. Wren moved out of Rue’s arms and wandered over to the seats.

  ‘What did she say?’ Rue said, following him.

  ‘That Angle Tarain sounds like trying to gargle with water when your mouth is filled with glass balls.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Oh, don’t take offence – we like to joke with each other. I told her that to us, World sounds like pigs mating.’

  ‘You’re mean!’ Rue barked a laugh, covering her mouth in mock outrage.

  ‘I am, indeed,’ he agreed.

  ‘Where have you been?’ she asked.

  Wren shrugged evasively. ‘Out. Work. You’ll understand when you start yourself.’

  ‘You mean when I start training. I can’t work yet, I ain’t old enough.’

  Wren laughed, and draped an arm over her.

  ‘Shall we?’ he said.

  They sat on his bed together, his little black Life box squatting in between them.

  ‘For you,’ said Wren, ‘Jacking in is obviously a little harder. You have to have a box to do it, whereas normal Worlders can do it anywhere and anytime they like. They implant you at birth here. Obviously, you don’t have an implant, so whenever you want to go into Life, you’ll need to use the box.’

  The box was black and nondescript. As he worked, his fingers flickering lightly over nothing, it seemed to her, the air popped gently above it and began to glow a faint blue colour.

  ‘Wah!’ said Rue in delight. ‘A spell!’

  ‘Of course not. This is an interface link.’

  ‘Sounds like a spell to me. Intaface linque.’

  ‘Your accent is atrocious.’ He shook his head.

  Rue rolled her eyes. She watched him push his hand into the blue shimmer. There were shapes dancing within the colour, but they moved too fast for her to make sense of them.

  ‘And so … there,’ said Wren, musing. ‘Now you have to put your head in it.’

  ‘Put my �
� ?’

  ‘Head in it.’

  Rue looked at the box, and then the haze above it.

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Too scared?’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘Okay, sorry. Then you’ll be in Life. It’ll take a moment, and you’ll feel like you do when you Jump. There’s a bit in between where everything is black and empty and hard to understand, but it only lasts a second. I’ll be right behind you.’

  ‘We don’t go together?’

  ‘I don’t need the box.’

  He touched the back of his neck, rubbing a little scar on his skin.

  ‘They put an implant in you?’ said Rue, curious, and a little repelled. Somehow, knowing that he had something inserted inside him from this culture made him more of a stranger to her.

  ‘What?’ he said, smiling. ‘Jealous?’

  Rue didn’t know what to say to that. She wasn’t, quite.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Wren continued. ‘If you do well here, you’ll get implanted, too, I’m sure. It’s really hard to live without one, actually.’

  How encouraging.

  ‘The box is the oldest form of Life interface, and it’s pretty clunky because it isn’t portable. But the graphics are just as good, so don’t worry about that.’

  I’d worry about it if I knew what you were on about, she thought.

  ‘We’ll try surface Life, first,’ said Wren. ‘HI-Life we can tackle once you’re used to things. Are you ready?’

  Rue felt her stomach roll and flip lazily, like a basking seal.

  ‘But I’ll be all alone.’

  ‘You’ll still be in this room. Except you’ll see it in Life.’

  He curled his fingers around the back of her neck and she flinched instinctively. She hated it when he pushed her, but she had to trust him. He was her only guide to this place.

  The blue light loomed in her vision.

  ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘No,’ came his voice behind her. ‘Just strange, buzzy.’

  Her forehead broke the light. It swamped around her skin and sizzled in her ears.

  Gods, I forgot to ask whether I can open my eyes.

  There was no way she’d risk it – she’d have to keep them shut. She screwed them tighter, afraid.

  It was nothing much, at first. Almost as if she had drunk too much, her head slow and thick. Then there was a keening, yammering noise, like fighting cats. She tried to bring her hands up to her ears but couldn’t feel them any more, as if the rest of her had somehow become detached, and all that remained of her was a floating head.

  The noise faded. Everything faded.

  The fear came, the one that told her she could be stuck here like this forever, nothing changing and nothing else happening, just herself all alone; a kind of death. It went on too long.

  Then she felt something touching her arm, which was good news, because it meant that she at least still had one.

  ‘Rue, open your eyes.’

  She did.

  Everything really had come alive.

  ‘It’s too much, at first,’ said Wren. ‘Your eyes need time to adjust to what they see. Like sunlight that’s too bright. Give it a moment.’

  Rue barely heard him. It hurt a little, yes. But it was too incredible; she couldn’t close her eyes again in case she lost it.

  The previously bare, grey walls of Wren’s room were covered in people. Little, perfectly drawn people in beautiful colours, with flowing hair and dresses so vivid they looked alive. It was hardly a surprise to see they could move. As she watched, a girl near her head on the wall winked at her as she drew water from a well. She was only six inches or so high.

  ‘Grad take me,’ she whispered. ‘Is she alive?’

  ‘It’s only wallpaper,’ said Wren, sounding amused. ‘From Old Times. It’s a Life game – we’ll play it sometime. Everyone plays it in World, it’s very popular.’

  Rue looked up further. The people were all moving, two-dimensional creatures going about their business. There was a drunk man who kept falling over, his nose all red. Girls scattering grain for pigs. A boy that in a flash reminded her strongly of Pake – the pleasant but dull farmer’s son she had once caught the fancy of back in her old village. He was lying on a wall, looking up at the sky, a smile on his face, until a man next to him walked over and cuffed him about the head. He fell off and rubbed his skull ruefully. Then, as she watched, he moved back to his wall, and the man moved back to his place a little further on. It repeated. The boy lay down, looking dreamily upwards. The man came along and cuffed him, his face twisted in annoyance.

  ‘It’s not so different to where I’m from,’ said Rue.

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘Why do they like it so? They should just visit Angle Tar. T’would be the real thing.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. They wouldn’t be allowed. And anyway, most people prefer a game to real life.’

  ‘Is it a story?’ said Rue.

  ‘Not at all. It’s just wallpaper, so it’s not as sophisticated as the game. It’s a set of pre-programmed clips, repeated. That’s all. We’ll play later.’

  She turned her head, sensing that he wanted to show her more. It was annoying, though. There was so much to see and learn that she felt like she didn’t have time to take it in. Wren was always moving forward, onto the next thing. At least she could count on never growing bored.

  ‘How does it work?’ she said, looking up. The ceiling had changed, too. It was an endless, textured black, peppered with small dots of light, stars that twinkled and winked. It was just as a night sky in summer would be, a clear one with a still wind.

  Wren shook his head. ‘I couldn’t begin to explain. Some of the mechanics I don’t even understand myself. It changes your perceptions of what you see, and hear, and touch. I don’t think they’ve been able to do taste or smell yet. Surface Life overlays everything you see around you with Life. There are trees lining the streets, outside, now, and the buildings will have beautiful paintings on their outside walls. There are gardens that are bare of art outside of Life. A lot of World artists only make art that can be seen in Life, nowadays. The weather in the sky is simulated in Life, and changes with the seasons. Everything in World is more beautiful in Life.’

  ‘But why not make all that real?’

  ‘If it’s not real, it can’t hurt anyone or cost so much. Do you know how much credit it would cost to run a garden, the people to maintain it, the space? It’s so much better for our environment to have the things people want in augmented reality, rather than really existing. So much less damage, so much less cost. And, you’ll see, Life is how everyone in World connects. You can meet up with anyone you like in Life, people from three thousand miles away. You can talk to whomever you want, and you don’t have to take a ridiculous journey to get to them. You can buy anything, or learn anything, in Life. If you don’t know the answer to something? Jack in, find it in Life. All the knowledge of its citizens, everything it’s ever achieved, resides in Life. Isn’t that incredible? Everyone with access to the same knowledge – no more elitism, no more barriers because of where you live or what family name you have or how much money you have, like in Angle Tar. Everyone with the same advantages, the same choices.’

  It was a fairy tale. It was everything that Angle Tar was not.

  ‘Let’s turn to languages,’ said Wren, lifting his hands and playing them on an invisible piano.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Looking through my personal account. You won’t see what I see because Life recognises my signature and shows some things only to me. I’ll show you how to access your account, though it’ll be empty at the moment, of course. Ah!’

  With a pleased look, Wren lifted his hand up and withdrew, from thin air, a long, blue rod that glowed pleasantly.

  ‘This is the World language. My manager got it a few hours ago and sent it through to me.’

  Rue stared at the rod. It looked alive.

  ‘What do you do w
ith that?’

  ‘It’s just a data stick,’ said Wren, waving it. Its glow left blue trails in the air. ‘It only exists in Life. I want you to take it, and push it into your head.’

  Rue laughed nervously.

  Wren nodded.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s … stupid.’

  ‘I know it sounds it, but trust me. I can’t push it into my head to show you – I’d use it up and we’d have to get you another one, which would be impossible anyway. Just … take it. And press it against your head. Then slide it in.’

  ‘You do it,’ said Rue, feeling a horrible urge to laugh again and swallowing it. She had a feeling Wren wouldn’t appreciate it. His face was quite serious.

  ‘All right. If you trust me.’

  ‘I do, of course I do.’

  Wren shifted up closer to her and she gazed at the rod.

  ‘It’s humming,’ she said. ‘Is it meant to do that?’

  ‘All data makes a sound in Life, don’t worry.’

  ‘It’s warm.’

  ‘That’s so it feels pleasant when you have to absorb it.’

  The sensation of the rod next to her skin was strange because it didn’t correspond to what she was seeing. Against her, it felt like a leaf of paper, but when she looked at it, she could see its thickness, its weight.

  ‘It tickles,’ she said.

  ‘It will do a lot more than that. Ready?’

  ‘Yes.’

  It slid into her head.

  The blue glow that gently suffused the room sharpened to a point, and the point was piercing the side of her skull. It was not painful, exactly. It was more as if her brain had been thrown into a jug of bubbling water. The shock shut her down. She couldn’t remember with any certainty afterwards whether she had been able to think throughout the whole thing, to wonder at what was happening. It was a shame, somehow.

  She felt a hand touch the side of her face.

  ‘What?’ she said. A part of her was momentarily delighted that she still had the ability to speak.

  ‘That’s it.’

  Rue looked around. Her head was too slow, as if it had trouble catching up with the rest of her.