The Immortality Game

Sunday, June 8, 2138

6:12 p.m. MSK

Marcus woke with a start. Light streamed in through tinted windows close on either side, confusing him since his mind told him he was in his own bed in the apartment back in Phoenix. He shook his head to clear the fog, and it all came crashing back…‌the horrible rocket ride to Russia; being attacked by a huge thuggish man and saved by a strange and beautiful woman, who had flowed down the corridor and attacked like some fantastic ninja; dragging the man into her apartment; watching that woman shoot the man like a deadshot Clint Eastwood from an ancient cowboy vid. He shivered. More had happened to him in the past few hours than in his entire previous life, and all he wanted was for things to return to the way they had been. He wanted to be home in Phoenix, mopping his mother’s brow and soothing her, arguing with his father about what kind of future he might have in a dying country.

Car…‌I’m in a car, he remembered. The leather of the seat creaked and gave off a comforting smell as Marcus sat up, stretching his arms and yawning. His stomach grumbled, his head ached, and he needed to relieve himself. The driver stood outside, leaning against the nose of the vehicle, smoking a sim-cig. Marcus told the car to open the door, but nothing happened, so he fumbled for a minute until he figured out how to pop the override handle and push the door up. He scrambled out and hesitantly approached the driver, who blew out a vapor cloud and smirked at him.

Marcus double-checked the pronunciation from the translator before he spoke. “Is this where I’m staying?” He scanned the crumbling apartment buildings that formed a U-shape around the parking lot. “I thought it would be more modern.”

The driver shook his head. “This is where your girlfriend wanted to go. Now the car won’t work. Complete power failure. You ever seen anything like that?”

Marcus shook his head.

The driver went on, “No worries. I called for another car. They’re busy at the moment, but one should arrive soon.” He put the sim-cig to his mouth and sucked in a deep breath.

“What’s that do for you?” Marcus pointed at the slim steel cartridge in the driver’s mouth. He knew what a sim-cig was in theory, but he’d never known anyone to use them. Smoking had been outlawed by the Global Council nearly two decades ago, and in America West the Mormon government had ruthlessly enforced the ban.

The driver looked at him sideways, his eyebrows raised like Marcus had asked the dumbest question in the world. He held the sim-cig out and looked at it, his mouth drawn down in a frown. “Like cigarette, yeah? No real tobacco in Russia since the Dark Times.”

Marcus knew how they worked. The tube was filled with tiny pellets filled with short-life nanobots. Draw in a breath on the end of the tube and it split a pellet and allowed you to suck the nanobots into your lungs. When you breathed out, the remnants of the nanobots were expelled in a sort of vapor, also meant to simulate smoking. “I heard there are different kinds.”

He’d heard there were simulators for everything from marijuana to cocaine and more, even ones for sexual arousal, though considering the prevalence of virtual mates why anyone would need the latter was beyond him.

The driver looked disgusted. “Maybe in the West with all your fancy habits. In Russia we smoke cigarettes.” He spat onto the pavement.

Marcus thought it was interesting how fast the man had dropped the polite formality of his chauffeur act. Perhaps it was being trapped down on ground level with a dead air car, babysitting a spoiled foreigner.

Fluffy white things floated on the breeze, piling in small drifts on the concrete. “What is this stuff?”

The driver rolled his eyes and spoke a small word that Marcus’s card translated as ‘poplar seeds’.

“This happen a lot here?”

“Every summer.”

He was about to speak to his father when there was a shout from his right. Zoya burst from the doorway of the apartment building, eyes wild, gun in her hand.

“Get in the car!” she cried. “Why are you still here?” She skidded to a halt by the rear of the vehicle and said, “Door open.”

“It doesn’t work,” Marcus said. “Are you being chased?”

Zoya glared at the door that refused to slide up, then looked at Marcus and the driver. “What do you mean it doesn’t work? How can it not work?”

“Zoya, are they here?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I…‌I’ll tell you later. We need to get out of here now.”

The driver said, “A car should be here any minute.”

A look of panic flashed across Zoya’s face. “No! I can’t stay here. And I need to check on Uncle Vasya.”

Marcus looked around. Other than apartment buildings he saw only a tiny deserted bread shop across the street and what looked like a coffee and pastry shop a little farther down. “Well, we can go, but wouldn’t we be better off when the new car arrives?”