“Yeah?” He seemed to sense that her demeanor had changed, for his voice became serious. “What’s up?”
“Saif, I need to know if you’re a part of this. I need you to tell me the truth: Did you know what Bluescreen does? Did you help make it?” She raised her eyes and found his; pale marble orbs laced with rippling bands of quartz and color. She held his gaze, and he held hers. After a long moment, he spoke.
“Do you know how it works?”
“Saif, tell me—”
“I don’t know anything,” he said. “I’m telling you the truth, Mari. I know it gives you a buzz, I know your friend had a weird reaction to it, and that’s it. I haven’t sold a single drive since you called me last night. But you’re talking like you know how it works.”
“It’s not enough to stop selling it,” said Marisa. “Everyone who’s ever bought from you is in danger, in real, life-threatening danger, and you have to warn them.”
“What danger are they in?” he asked. “What do you know, and . . . how do you know it?”
“What do you know?” she asked again. “Do you know how it works? Do you know what it does to their minds, all the people who use it and turn into . . . puppets?”
“Puppets?”
She couldn’t tell if he was shocked at the information, or at the word she’d used to describe it. “It takes over their bodies, and turns them into . . . well, nulis, I guess. Mindless slaves that someone—whoever’s in charge of all this—can move around like robots.”
“That’s impossible.”
“No it’s not,” said Marisa. “Anja and everyone else who’s ever used this is a puppet, remotely controlled, and they’ve already used them to kill, and that’s just one of the crimes they’re capable of.”
She watched him, waiting for a response, trying to see something—anything—in his sculpted stone face. An Overworld avatar was tied directly to the brain, and detailed enough to convey the player’s emotions. She watched his eyes for a sign of care, of concern, of horror at the truth.
He didn’t even blink.
“Saif?”
He said nothing. She touched him, and he bobbed in the air like a buoy, anchored but uncontrolled. She frowned; this happened sometimes in online matches, when someone’s link to the game was interrupted, but how could that happen here? How could you go link-dead when there was no online link, just a direct cable from the console to the djinni?
Unless the djinni itself had gone offline, but what could—
Bluescreen.
Marisa blinked out of the game as fast as she could, exiting the menu, exiting the lobby, tearing through the layers of virtual reality until she jerked upright in the parlor chair, blinking in pain as she opened her eyes too quickly in the real-world light. Saif was standing straight up, walking away from his VR chair, the djinni cable stretching out behind him like a thin white umbilical cord; it reached its limit, went taut, and snagged him for a moment before finally slipping free of his headjack and falling to the ground.
He moved in the same strange trance that Anja had, sure-footed but mechanical, with none of his usual smooth grace. He was headed for the door. Marisa ripped out her own cable and ran after him, grabbing his shoulder. He pulled away from her easily.
“Saif!”
He didn’t seem to hear her. Someone was controlling him.
Outside the street was full of speeding cars and autocabs, not moving straight like they had on the highway, but weaving in and out of each other in a far more delicate pattern. How easy would it be to have him jump in front of a bus—or had they learned their lesson with Anja, and they’d devised a new, surer way to get him killed? She grabbed him again, calling for help; the VR parlor receptionist looked up, doing something to his nails, but didn’t offer any assistance.
“Quiet down,” he said, irritated. “We don’t want to disturb the other guests.”
“He’s . . .” She paused, straining against Saif’s relentless walk, not knowing what to say, or how much of it to describe. “He’s OD’d on something,” she said at last. “Close your door so he can’t get outside; he could be killed.”
The receptionist frowned, his irritation bleeding halfway into confusion. “The door is glass, though, what if he breaks it?”