Virtual Thursday

By Huckleberry Hax

Hidden in plain sight in buildings spread around the globe: New Morecambe, a secret city populated with some of the world's top scientists. Can Emma Kline, AKA 'Thursday' (of the 'AFK' novels), infiltrate the city to steal its technology, a ground-breaking discovery which will change humanity forever?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Huckleberry Hax
• Release date: Nov 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005732332

Huckleberry Hax

Huckleberry Hax writes novels set in and around virtual worlds. His best-known titles are the books of the AFK series set in Second Life®.A resident of Second Life since 2007, Huck also writes regularly on his blog about the metaverse and was a columnist for the acclaimed AVENUE magazine for over two years. His book, Second Life is a place we visit, collects together 42 of these articles.Huck is also an experienced voice performer in SL and has read aloud from his and other titles at a wide range of venues, including Milkwood, The Blue Angel, Bookstacks, Cookie, Nordan Art and Basilique.Huck's other interests include poetry (he has published a volume of his own poems called Old friend, learn to look behind you in the coffee queue and co-edited issue one of the poetry journal, 'Blue Angel Landing'), photography and machinima.

Book preview

Virtual Thursday

By Huckleberry Hax

Copyright 2021 Huckleberry Hax

Smashwords Edition

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Cover design: Huckleberry Hax

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of contents

Author’s note

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Other titles by Huckleberry Hax

For CT

Author’s note

The events of this novel are set in 2018. They follow the five ‘AFK’ novels, which presented the story of Emma Kline – AKA ‘Thursday’ – and her experiences in and outside of Second Life ® between 2005 and 2014. You do not need to have read the AFK novels in order to access this book, but if you’d like to learn more about Thursday’s back-story then that’s where you’ll find it.

Virtual Thursday also serves as a prequel to both ‘Thank You For Afterlifing With Us’ and my upcoming novel, ‘Love is a Corrupted Data Stream.’

HH

1

I hate shopping centres.

I used to love shopping centres when I was a child. It’s one of my earliest memories. They were big and light and clean and cheerful, and full of shops which sold stuff that I was very interested in owning (and cafes which sold stuff that I was very interested in eating). My heart would leap for joy when the Christmas decorations went up, mid-November, and since my parents disapproved of this and always grumbled about Christmas coming too early, looking at them became my secret pleasure. It felt like the shopping centre was somehow on my side, giving me a friendly wink and whispering agreement into my ear that the season was indeed wonderful.

But now I hate them. Those same bold messages plastered across the windows that once connected with such clinical efficiency to my childhood desires, now turn my stomach in their shameless appeal to day-to-day impulsivity and self-indulgence - and, increasingly (let’s be frank here), their desperation. That friendly wink that became over time a crafty, you-deserve-it wink is now turning into a something that more resembles a nervous twitch. It’s a sweaty, faltering smile, a tug at the hem of your coat as you pass, a hopeful entreaty for a bit of spare cash as internet shopping does for all those ‘high street names’ precisely what they themselves once did to all those small, family-owned shops. I’m not trying to preach here. I’m just saying that it’s ironic, when you think about it: there is less and less distinction to be made between the behaviours inside these glorious consumer palaces and those of the growing number of homeless huddled in their cardboard boxes not ten feet from their entrance; the one is just a puffed up version of the other, wearing a cleaner shirt for now.

And I hate shopping centres for making me hate shopping centres. That memory of my parents is one of my favourite recollections of them because I knew that, behind their grumbles, they were secretly delighted by my delight. Every now and then I’d spot one of them catching the other’s eye, and seeing those little telepathic smiles between them was somehow bigger and more warming to my five-year-old brain than anything else that Christmas had to offer. It was a momentarily feeling of completeness, of connection to the universe, of everything being exactly the way things were meant to be. Why the fuck do we allow children to build meaning like that upon the cheap, sweatshop crap of a capitalist Christmas? I hate that my parents found such satisfaction in this saccharine-induced joy, and I hate shopping centres for making me hate that.

It was the first day of November. 2018. The clocks had been turned back just four days earlier and a week-long cold spell had put a final end to a summer that at one point had felt like it might just burn the soil from beneath our feet. It was just after 4pm. The sky was already beginning to darken. I strode through the shopping centre, part of a flow of after-work shoppers ‘nipping in’ before home to get that thing that wouldn’t wait until the weekend to be bought. I passed a card shop, an electronics store, a male clothing outlet, a discount jeweller.

I’m approaching the food court, I said. Where now?

Up the escalator, replied a voice inside my head. Then into the department store at the top.

The walkway opened out into a three-storey atrium, a vast cathedral of retail with a ring of fast-food outlets at the ground level. The latest trick of shopping centres is to make you think you’ve had some sort of spiritual experience inside them, an awe-inspiring encounter with concrete and open space, a glimpse into the eyes of the Gods of wanting and having things. I walked across chequered floor tiles to the escalator and started a smooth ascent, up into the heavens.

I looked awesome, by the way. Brown leather boots that disappeared into a Reiss overcoat the colour of the just darkening sky outside, and a black cashmere scarf in a loop around my neck. My hair was tied back. Of course, I wore glasses. I look good in glasses.

I’m on my way up, I said. Still no idea what this thing’s going to look like?

We’ve been through this already. It’ll either look like one of the standard collectibles I showed you earlier or it’ll be blended in somehow. There’s no way of saying from here. You’re going to have to figure it out for yourself.

I reached the top and stepped off. I’m entering the store.  I walked through the tag detectors and into the perfumery. Where now?

The item is about forty feet northwest of you. What can you see in that direction?

I stopped and looked, and waved away a perfume sample. Shoes.  I made off in that direction.

Right, said the voice. Of course.

Why ‘of course’?

It’s a great camouflage.

You think it’s going to be disguised as a shoe?

Probably. That’s how I’d do it.

Ferric, you just told me you had no idea what it would look like.

How was I to know a department store sells shoes?

"What did you think it sold?"

There was a pause. Then he said, weakly, Departments?

I came to the shoe section and stopped again. I’m here. Now what?

Let me see if I can see you. I’m tapping into the security feed. Ah yes, there you are. My, what a lot of shoes. You’re going to have to switch repeatedly between your augmented and your real view whilst you examine then. I recommend not using the ‘clear’ button on your glasses: those cute little microswitches can only take so much punishment. Try waggling them up and down in front of your eyes.

I am not, I told him, going to ‘waggle’ anything.

We need that shoe, Thursday, Ferric instructed. Get waggling.

I sighed, looked briefly around me - the nearest person was a shop assistant adding Christmas signage to the shelving - and started moving slowly along the first of the aisles. As I walked, I held my glasses by the left hinge and shifted them up and down, as subtly as I possibly could. I compared the real scene in front of me with the augmented version.

Anything?

Not so far.

Look closely, said the voice. It might not be a shoe. It might be something smaller, like a price tag or a coffee stain.

I stopped walking. Oh my God.

What is it?  Did you find it?

There’s a pair of black mules here with my name all over them.  Because I’m as much a pathetic slave to the consumer trends as are the masses.

Thursday! Ferric snapped. You’re not here to shop.

The shop assistant came over. Can I help you, madam?

I might come back to you on these mules, I told him, but I’m good for the moment, thanks.

Your fieldcraft is inspiring, Ferric commented.

And then I noticed a difference. It was at the edge of my vision. I shifted my view. It was a fawn-coloured pair of suede clogs: they were there when the glasses were down and gone when they were up. On closer inspection, I could see that they were hovering a full three millimetres above the white shelf.

I found it.

Excellent. Now download it as quickly as possible.

I had to use my phone for this. I pulled it from my back pocket, crouched down and lined the clogs up in the centre of the screen, hoping that anyone watching would think I was doing an online price comparison. The app recognised the item immediately, and on screen the clogs turned a deep red. I tapped on ‘download’. A progress bar appeared.

Cancel that download, instructed a male voice from behind me. Right now.  I tried to turn and felt cold metal pressed firmly into the back of my neck. A hand rested on my shoulder, I supposed to hide the gun from general view. I said now, the man repeated. It was the sales assistant. I recognised his voice.

Who is that? Ferric asked. What’s that man doing standing so close to you?

The clogs were fifty per cent downloaded. I don’t know what you mean, I said to the man. What do you want me to cancel?

This is the third and last time I’ll tell you. Cancel the download now or I’ll put a hole through the top of your spine.

I pressed cancel.

I’m directing Jesse to you, said Ferric. Panic had crept into his voice. Try to stay where you are for as long as you can.

Now give me the phone, said the shop assistant. I held it out; it was snatched from my hand. Now stand up slowly.  I stood.

I know you hate competition from online retailers, I told him, "but this is a hell of a way to treat a customer. I’m going to be leaving a very unfavourable review."

Shut up, he said. You see the door over there in the corner?  I nodded. You’re going to walk with me to it. Slowly.

What do you want from me? I asked him.

I said shut up. Now walk.

A new voice cut jumped into my head as we started crossing the store. Thursday, it’s Jesse. I’m on my way. Try to keep calm. Just breathe slowly.  I love it when men try to explain stuff to me, like how to breathe.

I reached the door. Open it, the assistant instructed. I reached out and pushed down on the handle. We entered a plain, breeze-block corridor; no expense whatsoever for the backstage decor to the scenery of deluxe, carefree shopping. It made me feel dirty for wanting those mules. I waited until I heard the door click shut behind us.

And then I span, swept aside with my right arm, nose punched with my left palm, kicked once into the shop assistant’s genitals, kneed his descending stomach and chest, brought my joined hands together down on the back of his head and stood to one side as he tumbled. His right hand flailed uselessly as he passed, slapping against my left boot.

I crouched, picked up his fallen gun and pushed it into his right kneecap.

Who are you? I asked him.

He looked in his late twenties. His hair was short and dark, and curled on the top. He was clean-shaven except for a neatly trimmed soul patch below his lower lip. He wore one-centimetre gauges in his ear lobes. I hate ear gauges. I hate even more that I hate ear gauges. It makes me feel like I’m eighty.

Blood was flowing from his nose. He dabbed at it uselessly with his fingers. Without taking my eyes off his face, I pulled tissues from my coat pocket and tossed them to him. He muttered a thin, barely audible, thanks and pressed them into his nostrils.

Who are you?

The door behind me burst back open. A young, straw-haired man rolled into the corridor. Thursday, he said, out of breath, but only a little. Is everything okay here?

Nice of you to join me, Jesse, I said. This idiot put a gun in my neck when I tried to download the item.

The voice started squawking in my head again. What’s happening?  Is everyone ok?

I’m at the scene, Ferric Jesse told him, shutting the door once more. The assailant is down. Thursday’s fine. Stand by.

Oh, thank God. Well done, Jesse!

He was there to pick up the item himself? Jesse asked me, pointing at Gauges.

I don’t think so, I replied. He was there before I was. He’s wearing store uniform. I think he was waiting for me.

Who are you? Jesse demanded. Gauges looked at him, dabbed at his nose some more and said nothing.

I retrieved my phone from his shirt pocket and took a picture of his face. Ferric, I’m sending you a photo. Run it through the facial recognition software.

We don’t have time for that.  Jesse took a fistful of uniform and pulled Gauges back onto his feet. Where are the nearest stairs?

Interesting fact, Ferric replied, this department store has a roof garden for its employees.

Fascinating. How do we reach it?

Don’t be ridiculous, I told him. You’re not taking him up to the roof.

We need to know who he is and what he’s doing here.

Don’t put yourself in a situation where you might need to follow through on your macho bullshit, and don’t make me order you to stand down. We’ll wait for facial recognition.  I motioned for Gauges to sit back down on the ground. What exactly is that thing out there?

Surprise seemed to get the better of his silence. His eyebrows raised a millimetre. You don’t know?

All I know is I was supposed to download it.

So you’re just a… courier?

She’s asking the questions, smartass, not you, Jesse told him. Answer her.

Ferric told us, I’ve got a match.

Who is it?

It came up really quick. His name is George Mansel. Ah. He’s Security Service.

Shit, I breathed.

You’re from Millbank?  Jesse said to him. What interest does MI5 have in any of this?  Is the item some sort of terrorist shit?

Mansel glared at us. Who are you and how do you have my picture on file?  Reluctantly, I pointed his gun back at him. He sighed and said, I don’t know any more about that thing than you appear to. My orders were to intercept anyone who tried to download it. That’s it.

I said to Jesse, I should go back out there and try again. If this thing is that important then for all we know someone else could be grabbing it right now.

Or just some kid, he replied.

Ferric cut in again. Wait. You mean you haven’t downloaded it?

You didn’t hear him telling me to cancel the download?

Oh yes I heard that perfectly. I just assumed you’d found some clever way of doing it anyway without him realising. There I go overestimating you again, Thursday. Anyway, it’s gone now.

What do you mean it’s gone? I snapped.

Gone. As in not there anymore. The little green blip vanished from my screen a few moments ago. I just assumed that meant you’d only just finished the download.

Shit! I threw open the door and ran out into the store. The shoe department was empty and the clogs had disappeared. Ferric, I hissed, are you able to rewind the security feed and see who took the item?

I’m rewinding the feed, he replied. "Looking back… ten seconds… twenty… thirty… forty… got him! Male. Fifties. Greying hair. White beard. Green bodywarmer and blue jeans. I think he’s wearing a checked shirt. Yes, it’s definitely him. I’m following him forward… he’s entering the lingerie department - oh, I get it