Residual Income

config.style.fonts.abordage.url: 'Abordage-Regular.woff2' config.style.fonts.abordage.name: 'abordage' config.style.page.theme.override: "dark" config.style.dark.footer.link.active.color: "#e9e9ff on #2440f4" config.style.dark.footer.link.lineColor: "#9fa4fb" config.style.page.link.active.color: "#e9e9ff on #2440f4" config.style.page.link.lineColor: "#0e2adb" config.style.dark.page.link.active.color: "#e9e9ff on #2440f4" config.style.dark.page.link.lineColor: "#c7c7fd" config.style.page.font: "abordage/sans-serif 16" config.style.page.color: "#773349 on #fae6ea" config.style.page.link.color: "#886f00" config.style.dark.page.link.color: "#e9e9ff" timeStarted: (now.hour * 60 + now.minute) * 60000 undecoded: true foundTrinket: false foundComputer: false foundWoman: false foundImage: false -- [JavaScript] timeStarted = performance.now(); [continued] I'm on the job. I've got work to do. I'm a businesswoman making a deal. I'm just like any other. I could be on the cover of a book or magazine, but I couldn't, because I can't appear in photographs. That's good; it makes me less precious. Less precious people do more important work. I'm doing real work; I'm not worried about my image. I haven't got an image. These are my gifts. The job is: he's a [[successful crime writer]], successful enough to retire on a fortune. I'm planning to take his gifts. It's work, mind you, more work than he's been doing. I don't leave people to starve. I balance out the system. I need more time. It's all that matters. When you have time, you have the world. My work isn't difficult, but I work hard on it. It's made easier by my gifts. I had a terrible accident. I had a terrible, terrible accident. But I'm alright now. I use it and move forward. I can't be seen, you see. I can't be seen on CCTV. And since that's the first line of defence in the state of surveillance, well, I can do what I like without fear of the cavalry. There are disadvantages, of course. But I work with them and I work round them. I don't let them set me back. What kind of monster would I be if I did? > [[Break in.->front room]]

[unless foundComputer] But I don't know the passcode. I need to find out the passcode. It must be buried in these memories somewhere. > {back link, label: 'Go back'} [else] Thiff Daster sits hunched on a small plastic chair surrounded by an empty room with long limestone walls. Once he was the prime suspect of any literary launch, sipping the night away with his arm around some hot new editor. Once he was the highlight of the unmentionable press, his name bloodstained over any cover that wanted to sell a million copies to his fervent fanbase, lapping up any injection they could get of his rapid-paced striking style sneaking up from behind until suddenly he is alone and over middle-aged, creases up and down his blotchy skin in sharp contrast to the stainless steel surroundings, though his hair is well-kept. In a manner better suited to the previous century, that is. His glasses are nowhere to be found and so his swollen eyes squint like seaglass in the sun. Embedded deep inside the most technologically advanced city on the planet and yet rejecting anything more complex than a belt buckle. It's an interesting survival instinct. It will make him the perfect reward. "Did you enjoy it?" he creaks. "Pointless busywork," I retort. "That's too bad. I had fun making it. It passed the time, for a while." His tone was that of the unfamiliar uncle in an old family drama when asked, at last, a question concerning more than whether he can pass the salt. He doesn't rise. Perhaps he can't. "Do you feel safe?" I ask. "I hope not. Everyone who says they're safe has such boredom in their eyes. I think they'd like to read some of my books. That'll give them a fright. Remind them what they're grateful of. And the whole thing goes round in a circle." "Any wishes? Before..." "You're not stupid. Don't give me the satisfaction of pretending I am." I find myself pacing, looking for a handhold, but the room is truly empty, devoid of content, devoid of comfort. "I did my research," he continues, "Looked up anything I could about your kind. Fascinating literary devils. Suitable for all sorts of purposes. I've tried to include one in two of my stories, but I was laughed out of publication. The bloodsucker-as-killer was deemed too obvious, while the bloodsucker-as-victim too unlikely. Isn't that funny?" "I take what pleasure I can. It doesn't bother me what people think. I'm not like those creatures in the night. I'm mature. See, we're having a conversation." "The vampire's true enemy, I learned, is not danger but boredom. Those endless years stretch on and on. Companions, like fashions, come and go. The work of life—or unlife—remains the same. Change becomes the only thrill. Change becomes in short supply." I raise an eyebrow. "Keep mansplaining my predicament and I'll kill you faster. I'm not turning you if that's what you think. I'm done keeping company. *You don't want this.*" "If you want to catch a vampire, they won't answer to money or security or sex. They can take all that faster than you can offer it. No, to get you to come to me I had to provide entertainment." "I'm not giving you my blood," I repeat. He dusts the weary valleys of his forehead. "I don't want it, my dear! I want you to have mine." "You don't want to live. Of course you don't. But that's-" I sink my tooth into my lip. "But you must have something to live for. Why all this work?" "That's the thing, you see. My work's dried up. I've written thousands of stories, you see, I must have done all the possible combinations. Any object you can think of, any backstory, any personality type, they've all been used for murder. It's all I can see now. Swimming in my mind, drowning my thoughts... And my owner screwed me out of residuals." He clutches his skin in his hands. It's like his brain is trying to come out of his head. "No enhancements for me. Can't afford the come-alive chips. Don't trust 'em, anyway... Don't trust anything, really. It's all trying to kill me. Well, I'm done moving slowly." He coughs violently. It doesn't bother me. I can't get any more sick. "So this is your last effort." He nods, loquaciously. "The one thing I haven't tried. A last effort at some kind of thrill. For my readers. The drink took any feeling out of me long ago. Do you partake?" He reaches for a resplendent glass bottle. "I can't," I explain, "Each distinct taste is branded. It's too hot in my throat." "Of course. I read about your anathemas. Blue light, brand icons, stake holders. But you have your own liquids." Blood red in his eyes. "Will you do it, then?" he concludes, "Will you-?" > [[Make it real.]]

[align right] His specialty is locked-room mysteries. Written thousands of them. Very popular for selling security systems. [continued] [[Shut up.->begin]]

[if passage.from == 'begin'] I'm an expert by now. They keep reinventing these sophisticated door systems but the more spokes you add the more holes you add, too. It only takes one to make the whole thing break. I don't even need to use my teeth. The SECURETIKLOCKWEB spitting etching all over means I have to shield my eyes, but let's face it, I can do this with my eyes shut. Just cut the connection cable connecting to the wider world. Then I'm in. Of course it's not that simple. I understand that. I'm ready for it. There'll be an alarm triggered, a dead man's switch. He's already in his panic room. I give it an hour, a hundred minutes before the security warriors show up. But I can't be tracked. I can be in and out before then and the electrobat huntresses will be scratching their heads at a heist by the invisible woman. Some kind of new technology, they'll tell the bosses, but they'll never be able to find what's under my skin. I don't have a soul to tape. I hear a thunk. I know what it is. From the plans, the apartment is arranged in a square. I can turn a corner and find myself in a different space. In the centre of it all is the vault, the panic room, the place of rest. He must've slipped inside as soon as I entered. I need to find a way in. This is where I start. [continue] It's a sitting room, living room, front room, all-in-one room. In one smooth move I switch off the TV, but it won't be long before it turns back on. I could smash it but that's not what I came for. It's good to have pressure, good to keep myself moving. There is a [[trinket]] on the coffee table. A vat of trophies sits on a side wall. Then there's the usual accoutrements, expensive or rather not. I realise my image was incorrect. The life of a crime writer isn't the life of a crime fighter. (What am I? A crime creator? What is offensive when we pay to be protected?) Anything more than the average embellishment (or the average from a few decades ago) looks gifted or thrifted. It doesn't matter. I'm not after that sort of wealth. > [[Go to the office.]] > [[Open the vault.->finale]] > [[Go to the bedroom.]]

"It doesn't work like that. You're an idiot. You don't understand a thing you read. That's why you're failing. You think what's on the page represents the whole of reality. Well it doesn't. I'm living proof of that. I'm far more advanced than you could ever dream. You think you know all the lore? Try living it. That doesn't show up in an ethnographic study. All the cold mornings, the resisted dinners, the sinews stuck between my teeth. They're sharp alright but they only stay that way through restraint and hard work. I'm the same as all the rest of you, or you're the same as me, but you don't get it. You might as well be a monster for all the good you do. Exploiting death. There's only one of us who does that. My work is a benefit to the world. I choose my targets carefully, why do you think I'm after you? Berating you? Looking down on you? It's a shame they never get to learn their lessons but then I'm a tradeswoman not a teacher. The teaching, it comes on the computers, I couldn't access it, I died too young. Too different now anyway. They don't retrain you for the world that comes, they just wait for you to stop being part of it. I suppose you think you'd be leaving me your fortune. Well it doesn't work that way. I'm dead, "you see," corpses don't have bank accounts. Anything I get I have to take. People like you don't understand that. I'm an asshole but I earned it. I feed on life. I'm more alive than any of you. You especially. Do you get it? *It doesn't work if you want it.* I get the years you were supposed to have. Which doesn't mean shit if that's zero. I thought you were a good one. I thought you had a long retirement ahead of you. I hadn't counted on the network decaying. More profitable that way, but I'm not in charge. I'm not allowed. I make my own society. I thought you'd be *juicy*. But I can't suck your neck. There's no point. It'd be stupid and I'm not stupid. You play games with me and you lose. You lose, because I'm not alone, because I can choose any number of other job sites, because I have time to waste, and you'll die in this room, regretting your own stupidity, wishing you had time to start again." "It's a shame they'll never know you," he says, "You'd make such a good character." I'll show myself out. > [[Lock the vault from the outside.]] > [[Leave the vault unlocked.]]

timeEnded: (now.hour * 60 + now.minute) * 60000 -- [JavaScript] timeEnded = performance.now(); [continued] That's what he doesn't get about real killers. Real professionals. Real people. You can have a locked room without a mystery. It doesn't take a genius to figure out his motivation. I don't know if he deserves what I've given. But I haven't. It wasn't my fault. He did it to himself. It was as if I was never there at all. I'm sure his team will get there eventually. I'm sure they'll never even conceive that anybody else was there at all. The real question is whether anyone will care for more than twenty-five minutes. > [[Walk home.]]

timeEnded: (now.hour * 60 + now.minute) * 60000 -- [JavaScript] timeEnded = performance.now(); [continued] I'm not an investor. I don't come down from my penthouse and choose who to sink my cash into. I act as I'm supposed to. I don't make decisions, I make optimisations. My teeth might do the dealings but they're the arm of something greater. I don't get to decide. I'm not above all that. I'm not down on the ground either. I'm a weapon, very sharp, the best in the business, but you can't hire me for love nor money. I do what I have to do and I do it well. > [[Walk home.]]

foundImage: true -- Each story and ghostwritten novel he's published in the past fifty years have used the same photo to represent the author. He is smiling in the way that intercity passports don't, but not smiling so warmly that anyone would think he is not a tough man, tough on crime, tough on his characters, toughen up by reading him. It's a smile I've tried to imitate, but I can't tell how it looks, I just have to trust. He is in repose. He looks like he could be your father, the one who slaps you on the back and tells you to watch out for women. You never know what we're thinking. Once he stopped looking like the image enough that people started commenting, he stopped appearing in public. Only written interviews, only mailed autographs. Did he have any relationships? By a certain point, he might've been able to assume a false persona. I'm the real deal. I can't help it. > [[Put it back.->Go to the bedroom.]]

foundTrinket: true -- A tiny model of a bouquet of flowers. It's not nice. I don't like it. The metal—pewter, not gold—is sloppy, erasing the details, turning it into trichotillomanic sludge. It looks wrong as I pick it up because the reflections aren't right. They're too shiny, too clean, too monochromatic. It's what I expect but it doesn't belong. It makes it look fake, like a prop from a virtual render. > [[I don't want it.->front room]]

What do you expect? It's an office. It faces a window. I could never live in a space like this. I need to be close to the ground. Close to... something. Whatever I belong to it's been long erased from the sapphire landscape. I make my own space. I make this city my bitch. I'm important like that. I make my own importance. On the desk is a [[computer]]. It's old. Terminal. Not as old as me. But old enough. > [[Go to the kitchen.->kitchen]] > [[Open the vault.->finale]] > [[Go to the front room.->front room]]

It's where he sleeps. It's where I don't want to be. I haven't felt a bed this comfortable in a century. I don't want it. It's better for me. I'm more experienced, I'm adaptable to any sort of circumstances. I could never rest like this. I've always got more to do, more to see, places to be, I need to find. If I lay down like this I'd never get up again and what would be the point? What would be the point of that? What would be the point of living like this? No, there has to be an intervention. On the plastic brand new bedside table sits a [[photograph->image]], out of its frame, out of its mind. The original. It must be. It must be worth a fortune. > [[Go to the front room.->front room]] > [[Open the vault.->finale]] > [[Go to the kitchen.->kitchen]]

The kitchen/dining room/artificial workspace is as sharp as anyone would expect. There's a microwave, a megalofryer, slicers and peelers and stuck-between-your-teethers. I suffer from shiny surfaces but I don't need them. My kitchen is a freezer and an empty space for appearances. All this *clutter* is for the complications of a polyvorous diet. He can't even keep the place clean. Why not settle for an ambiguous confetti print? At the table (wooden, glazed, fake wood, shiny, plastic, stolen) is a [[woman]]. > [[Go to the bedroom.]] > [[Open the vault.->finale]] > [[Go to the office.]]

timeElapsed: timeEnded - timeStarted -- [if timeElapsed > 7200000] But of course. What was I saying about a hundred minutes, a hundred and twenty? I took too long. I don't know how. It wasn't a long job. There wasn't much to say. I must've been idling, thinking. I have to get out of my head. I've been caught. I've been seen. They're coming for me with stunners and gunners. A pitiful team, only one or two, flashing their badges of CONSTANTASSURE and SECURELOCKWEBTIK and and bright eyes always watching and and I wince and I won't let it get to me and my vision is hazy and and I I'll break out. They won't be able to process me. They saw how it started but they can't judge me on what happens next. They'll try to send me into the shadows but I don't have one. They'll give me time to think. They'll give me time to plan my next mood. They'll give me food if they're stupid. What a feast it is to be trapped with people. [else] In this city no-one knows me. I can't be known. To be known is to be recorded, a contact card, and that doesn't make sense for me. I don't need it. It's not in my biology, my unique chemical makeup. Maybe you all need all this technology to fill the hole in your heart but I'm happy with it. I heal fast. I'm a liar. I take the subway back home, ducking into the ground, worming my way through the veins of the city, a virus without a ticket, undead and self-replicating. That sounds stupid. I'm not stupid. I'm smarter than that, smarter than a smart card, I need to stop thinking. I make it home. Home is a warehouse. They rave all night. I hide in the empty offices where the children never bother to look. It's my base of operations, quite an impressive array. I was robbed once. I'll get that fucker sometime. I can't afford competition. All in all, after the month I've had, it's good to be back. But at the end of the day I've got nothing to eat.

foundWoman: false foundWoman (foundTrinket): true -- She must be his mother. I don't like to look at her. I'll never get that old. She doesn't seem bothered by me. Keeps working at her tablet. He must have women around a lot. Either that or she can't see. Too much blue light seeps into anyone. [if foundTrinket] I have information, so I brace myself and sit opposite her. "Hello," I say. "Hello," she says, briskly. So she can see me. "Is he fond of flowers?" I ask. "His flower..." she whispers, "Katren. He loved him. Did you come about the collection?" She stretches out a veiny hand and grips it around mine. I shrink away but not fast enough to put the fear in her. "You're cold," she says. "Yes." "You should take medicine." Then she starts withering on about a time her friend's sister was nearly flattened by a taxi owned by her own company, so I think I've got as much as I'm going to need. [continued] > [[Turn back.->kitchen]]

foundComputer: false foundComputer (foundWoman): true -- I put on my blue light filter sunglasses to address the device. They're not perfect, I'll never be an endless scroller, but for short bursts of interaction they give me enough protection to get what I need out of these machines. The computer is hungry. It wants a password. [if foundWoman] I type in "katrin". It seems too obvious but it accepts it. I don't have time for love. I don't have time for any of that. Well I have time but I don't have Let's look at the files. I'll find what I'm looking for. It can't be this easy. There it is: "vaultcode". That's it. That's what I need. It's a simple equation. It rings false but I'll have to try it. There are no consequences for failure. I can get out of any situation. I can get out of this one too. [continued] > [[Switch it off.->Go to the office.]]