Static

Today I'd like to share with you my Round One entry to the 2019 Short Story Challenge for NYC Midnight. I placed second in my heat. The assignment was to write a story with the following elements: Bachelor/Trophy Hunting/Sci Fi. I shared this right after I submitted to the contest, but I've since made edits based on the judges feedback and wanted to share it again. I'm planning on putting this in my upcoming collection.

I hope you enjoy. 

STATIC

Anthony D Farr

The drums thrummed in his ears, beating against his closed eyes. He felt his heart sync with the music as the electronic notes swelled to a crescendo. He remained motionless, letting the auditory waves pulse over him, preparing him for the hunt.

"Excuse me," he opened his eyes to see a lithe woman leaning over the opposite side of the small round table. He raised an eyebrow at her and she continued, "Are you Nathicide? I'm CharCzar." She extended her hand as the dim light of the club reflected off her opalescent dress. He stood, grasping her hand.

"Yes, please have a seat, and call me Nathan. All my friends do." They sat opposite each other. He smoothed his shirt, then his eyes glazed over as he lowered the volume on his internal system.

"Charlene," she nodded her head. "You're not one of those are you?"

"One of what?"

"One of those guys who's out on a date but always checking his internal?"

"No," Nathan laughed, "not one of those guys. I was turning the volume down on my music. I always like to have a soundtrack. I'm really into music."

"Yeah? Anything I would know?"

"A lot of it is self-produced. It's mostly electronic with some drum and bass thrown in for good measure."

"Nice. Can you port it to me? Can I hear?" She reached across the table grasping his hand.

"Yeah," Nathan turned his hand over, palm up touching hers. "One sec." His eyes glazed over again as his internal overlay pulled over his vision. He selected a file and tapped his index finger to Charlene's wrist. The file transferred instantly. Nathan smiled as his overlay dropped and his eyes cleared again.

Charlene's eyes glazed as she opened the file, then returned to their normal hue. Nathan noticed they reacted with the same shimmer as her dress. She closed her eyes and bobbed her head to the rhythm. Nathan smiled as she tapped the table in sync with the beat.

"You like?"

"Absolutely," she said grinning, "this is incredible. You really made this?"

"Yeah," he lowered his gaze. "It's just a hobby."

"Well, it's incredible. I mean it really gets to me. Did you encode anything in it or is it just the music?"

"No. No, I'd never do anything like that. I just like the pure auditory experience. I don't code any behavioral mods into my stuff."

"Oh, come on," she tilted her head raising her eyebrow, "you can't tell me you've never played around with static or anything like that."

"No," Nathan shook his head. "No, I promise, I've never done static." He inclined his head toward her, "You?"

"Well," she slipped an awkward laugh, "once in college, I tried static. It was cool, but since I graduated, I've never done anything like that again. Especially after my little sister."

"Your sister?"

"Yeah, this was a few years ago. She must have been twenty at the time." Charlene reaches for her face instinctively to wipe a tear nonexistent in the virtual environment. "She was home one weekend visiting my parents. My mom walked in on her burnt out on static. The doctor said that it was just a bad charge."

"I'm so sorry." Nathan reached across the table and held her hand. "That must have been so hard. Where's your sister now?"

"Her brain is slagged, but my parents keep her body on life support. It's tearing them apart. I just wish I could bring them closure, you know? I wish there was some way I could help them move on." She clears her throat and sits upright regaining her composure. "Okay, enough sadness. What about you? Did you ever experiment with static?"

"Honestly, I've never had the desire to try anything like that." He leaned back in his chair as he continued, "I've always found other ways to find my thrills."

"Oh yeah," Charlene sat forward in her chair, "like what?"

"I might show you later," Nathan said with a toothy grin. "First," he gestured at the dance-floor, "let's have some fun here." He stood and offered his hand to her, "Care to dance?" His internal music built into a triumphant wave. Charlene extended her hand and stood.

"That sounds amazing. Let's go." She pulled ahead of Nathan and led him out to the dance floor. Other avatars danced around them, dancing to their own playlist or to the house music. As she spun around her dress spread out and reflected the light causing her to glow. Nathan pulled her close as they danced to his music. Slowly they lilted around the dance-floor. Nathan pulled her close and their eyes locked.

"What kind of rig do you have?" Nathan asked.

"I'm not analog. I got a plant last year," Charlene tapped beneath her left ear. "Best purchase I ever made. No more contraption taking up my living room if I want to hop online. Just lay back, close my eyes, and load up." He spun her out then back to his arms. "What about you? You old school or did you upgrade?"

"I'm always an early adopter. I got a plant about three years ago."

"You must have spent a small fortune on that."

"Well, it meant that I could do more here than if I had a rig. There's only so much tactile feedback you can get from the old analog gear, know what I mean?"

"You still running on an outdated system?" Her feet crossed back and forth as they danced across the floor deftly avoiding the other avatars.

"No," Nathan grinned, "I'm on an AegisTec NX."

Charlene stopped in place.

"Get out." She stared slack jawed.

"Seriously."

"That's the latest prototype. Your feedback must be incredible. I read the latency on that is so low on the NX that it's almost precog."

"It's not that good," he said with a wink, "but almost."

Charlene smiled twirling away from him then nodded at the empty table.

"This was fun, but I'm having a bad ping or something, want to sit down for a bit?"

"Yeah, sure." He released her, and they sat back down at a table. He took a moment to bring the volume up on his internal system as the music lulled into a minor key. As they sat, he puffed out his cheeks and rested on his elbows. "How bad is it?"

"Not too bad," Charlene said after a slight hesitation. "This never happens here. That's why I meet dates at this node, because I have a good ping here. Must be something going on with my internal."

"Well," Nathan leaned in and lowered his voice, "if you’d like to come to my node, I have a high-speed connection that should smooth out any ping if it is in fact the node. Or if it's your internal, I have some diagnostics I can run for you." He held his hands out toward her, "No pressure though."

"You'd really do that for me?" She reached for his hand but held back just inches from his. "You aren't some neg are you? Gonna slag my internal and steal my data?"

"Nothing like that, I promise." Nathan kept his hand extended. "Seriously, I'll leave you my node address, port over there, you do a scan, and if it skeeves you out, then don't come." He shifted to his internal and brought up the address to his node, displaying it on the palm of his hand.

"Sure," Charlene touched her palm to his and her eyes glazed as the data transferred. As she shifted back, she smiled and said, "Sounds like a plan. I'll scan, then meet you there, if everything checks out."

Nathan nodded to her, brought his hand to his lips, and blew her a kiss.

"I'll see you there."

He shifted to his internal, bringing up an overlay. He selected his home node and confirmed. The colors and shapes of the club node muted and blended together as he transferred. Everything washed out as he passed through the Way Station, a static void of white noise and muted gray blobs of other users passing him. As he loaded into his node, his home space took on form from the dull gray of the Way Station. The interior of an ornate Victorian manor formed in his vision. He landed in the study. Books lined the walls, titles shifting between the volumes in his library, both contemporary and classic. A fire gently glowed in a large fireplace. Nathan walked over to his desk and brought up his node's system.

"Where are you?" He looked at the incoming and outgoing data display. The monitor showed a spike in the incoming traffic and Nathan smiled, "There you are. Scanning my node." He swiped the display and brought up his music. The melancholy music wafted from every pore of the house. Surrounding him, enveloping him in a blanket of sound. He adjusted the volume lower and looked up as a green sphere appeared before him. It emanated a low bell tone.

"Answer," Nathan said to the orb, and the tone ceased.

"Incoming visitor," the orb said with a soft digitized voice, and projected a hologram of Charlene's avatar with her user name beneath. "Do you accept?" The orb projected a green number one and red zero next to her avatar. Nathan passed his hand through the one and the orb blinked out of his node.

With a white flash, Charlene stepped into Nathan's node.

"Nice," she said looking around. "I like your aesthetic. You've definitely got your own thing going here."

"Thanks," Nathan gestured to the doorway, "if you would like to go this way, I'll show you around."

"Sure." Charlene walked out of the room into the hallway where she stumbled and placed her hand on the wall for support. "Actually," she gritted her teeth as she spoke, "do you mind if we run those diags? My ping is getting worse, and it's actually getting a little painful." She closed her eyes tight and continued, "It feels like my plant is burning a little. Is that normal?" She slumped down onto the floor, pressing her hand against the left side of her neck.

"That seems right on time," Nathan walked over to the wall and brought up a display. He increased the volume of the music throughout the house. A single low horn tone vibrated throughout the node.

"Can-" Charlene tried to speak but stopped as she contorted her face in pain.

"Everything okay?" Nathan paced to her and stood over her.

"Can you turn that down? It's making it worse." She made hand gestures in front of herself. A look of shock washed over her face. "Nothing's happening. I can't access my internal." She flailed her hands faster. "I can't exit." She stood, pressing her back against the wall, her eyes wide.

"I can't turn the music down now. It's just getting to the good part." A rhythmic drum beat joined the low note followed by other instruments as it built to a peak. "The climax is almost here. The payoff of the composition." He made a series of movements with his hands and the Victorian hallways morphed into a dank, dark stone hallway lit by flickering torches.

"What did you do?" Charlene pushed away from the wall and ran to the large wooden door at the end of the hallway. She pulled on the latch, but the door stood unmoving. She looked back a Nathan at the other end of the hall. "What did you do?" She screamed at him.

"Well, this could have gone different ways, but you made it easy by accepting the music file I sent over. I coded in some mods on the music that most scanners can't find, and if they do, they can't eliminate them. It was coded to give you a sense of pleasure being around me, then it messed with your ping, and now it's allowed me to lock you in here." He moved his hands and fingers in precise movements and a long curved black bladed knife appeared in his left hand. His right touched a brick on the wall and the walls became glass looking into a darkened room.

Charlene looked around as ghostly visages of women moved around the darkened rooms. They came closer to the window and pressed against it. One of them mouthed "Run" to Charlene.

"What is this?" Charlene pointed around. Nathan took two steps closer, twirling the knife in his hand. The music slowly continued to build. "You can't do anything permanent with that? What are you planning?"

"That, sweetheart," Nathan pointed the knife at her, "is where you are wrong." He tossed the knife to the other hand and continued, "That burning you felt in your plant? That was a little something I coded. It'll make it look like you burned out on some bad static. You've probably got another hour before your body is done. After that, I keep this version of you here," he gestures to the other women beyond the glass, "in my trophy room."

"You can't do this, it's impossible." She backed away.

"Sorry, it's very possible." Nathan walked toward her as the music took a menacing turn, building into a crescendo. "You'll spend as long as I want you to, here with my other trophies, while everyone in the outside world just thinks you are some static head who took bad charge."

Charlene laughed. Nathan stepped back and raised an eyebrow as he stared at her.

"What's so funny?"

"The fact that you're so cocky." Charlene stood and squarely faced Nathan. She held a hand out and tapped him in the chest causing him to splay his arms and legs as he levitated before her. The knife dropped and clattered to the floor. "You think you're so smart?" She stepped closer, glaring at him through cold eyes. She looked up as the music continued to pulse from the node and stopped it with a gesture of her hand. "There we go," she said with a sigh. With another wave Vivaldi's Spring played from the node. She looked back at Nathan and continued, "That's much better."

"You can't do this-"

"It's impossible?" Charlene laughed. "How often are you used to someone like me saying that to you?" She gestured to the women behind the glass, "How many of your trophies did you lure here and torture? How many real bodies did you slag, making their families think they were just overdosed junkies?" She shoved him, causing him to fly back to the end of the hall and collapse on the floor. She screamed, "How many were like my sister, you sick monster?"

"Your sister?" Nathan lifted himself on one knee.

"I knew she'd never OD. I knew it. I tracked you down. Learned your rituals. But you messed with the wrong family. I used your own virus against you. Right now, your body is being slagged, I bet you didn't even realize you aren't on your home node right now. I copied it exactly when I scanned it. You gave me the keys to the kingdom, and I ran with them."

"What are you going to do to me?"

"Me," Charlene looked around at the women gathering against the glass, "I'm not going to do anything more, but them," she shook her head, "I can't make any promises."

She waved her hand, and the glass disappeared. The ghostly women looked at each other in shock before they gleefully leapt onto Nathan's avatar. Their weight muffled his screams.

As he grew silent the ghostly women stood and stepped away from the still avatar of Nathan. One of the women looked at Charlene.

"What do we do now?" She asked, her voice a lilting whisper.

"You're free. You can leave here and go where you want." Charlene waved her hand and a glowing white door appeared in the middle of the hallway. It opened on unseen hinges to reveal a bright rectangle. "Nathan can't hurt you anymore."

One by one the women filed out of the node and disappeared through the door until there was one left. The girl waited off to the side holding her arms close to her body. She stared wide eyed at Charlene.

"Is it really you?" She whispered.

Charlene ran to her and embraced her, and they held each other tight.

"You came for me," the woman whispered.

"Always," Charlene said through sobs.

"Can I go home?"

"We'll figure it out, but for now you're safe." She strokes her sister's hair. "Let's go to my node. Mom and dad are waiting."

"What about him?"

"I'm closing him off in a disconnected node. Once I'm offline, I'm pulling the drive I've got him on, and he'll be trapped in here until it loses power."

"How long will that be?"

"Probably fifty years."

"Good."

Charlene pulls her sister close and opens a new portal.

"Come on now, let's go home."

They walk into the portal, fading into the light, leaving Nathan writhing on the floor. As the portal closes, Nathan is left in the dark hallway with only the flickering torches illuminating the damp dark stone beneath him.

Thanks for reading. Be sure to comment down below or on whatever social media you found this on to let me know your thoughts.

If you liked the story and you want to help support my writing habit, I've just signed up for Ko-Fi, which is like an online tip jar. So, no pressure, but if you are feeling so inclined, I would appreciate any amount. 

-Anthony

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