Excerpt: Theme

Chapter Nine

It only took a few more minutes for Houdini to gather his supplies, and then the kid threw on a t-shirt with the slogan “Cut the Chord” stenciled across the front, slung his bag across his shoulders, and escorted Isaac outside.

“We found a great spot just a few blocks from here,” Houdini said as they started walking through Chinatown. “Used to be a laundry and clothing storage warehouse, before all the nano-smartcloth came along and the all the drycleaners went out of business. It has tons of empty space for our setups. You’ll see.”

Isaac considered his current situation with a combination of bemusement and embarrassment. He hadn’t been part of the party circuit, even when he was Houdini’s age. Now he was attending an underground rave party with a bunch of Theme-hackers, escorted by a kid who could’ve easily been his grandson. He thought about what Emily’s reaction would be if she could see him now. Or better yet, what Cedric would think about his star composer hanging out with the Discord crowd. The image made him chuckle.

Hearing him laugh, Houdini looked over at him and raised an eyebrow. “It’s nothing,” Isaac said. “I just was thinking…never mind. Houdini, am I dressed appropriately for this party?”

Houdini shrugged. “Yeah, sure. Don’t worry, no one pays too much attention to that kind of thing at these events. It’s all about personal experience, so if someone wants to see you wearing a tuxedo or bunny suit, they will.” He tapped his ears and winked. “Or their implant will tell them they will.”

Isaac nodded. He was still struggling with the dichotomy of philosophies between his normal crowd of fans and musicians and his new associates from the Discord movement. Isaac had always used technology to deliver a common experience for his listeners. But now he had met a group that was using the exact same technology – the same basic hardware and software – to deliver individualized experiences for each of their users. Why there had to be such a sharp division in approaches, Isaac didn’t know. And maybe that was why he was finding the Discord approach to Theme composition so interesting. Maybe his head was trying to come to terms with how he could combine both styles and create a hybrid of the two. Or maybe he was just bored of his normal routine, and needed a breather, he wasn’t sure.

Isaac could hear the sound of thumping bass as they approached the converted Laundromat warehouse. There was already a line of people forming at the back door, but Houdini marched right past it, though he did stop occasionally to greet someone in line or hand out a medipatch. When they reached the door, a squat bouncer, thick with both muscle and bad attitude, stood with his arms crossed and scowled at the folks waiting in line. When he saw Houdini, however, his demeanor changed completely.

“” the man said, reaching out to sweep Houdini into a bear hug.

The boy flopped helplessly in the big man’s grip, his hands fluttering like a fish trying to escape a net. He looked over his shoulder at Isaac and said breathlessly, “My cousin, Li Hong. He’s…fond of me.”

Releasing Houdini from his grip, Hong’s scowl returned as he studied Isaac. “” he said.

Houdini patted the man on one huge arm. “He’s the Old Man. Don’t worry, he’s alright. He’s here for his first real Discord riff.”

Hong gave a low laugh. “”

“No, I’m not a tour guide,” Houdini protested, looking annoyed. “He came in because of the navigational that I wrote with Ghazali, okay? And he knows all about composition, so I thought…” He broke off, exasperated. “Listen, just move out of the way, will you? He’s with me, that’s all you need to know.” He gave his cousin a shove.

It was obvious that Houdini’s effort to move the bouncer were futile. But Hong, giving Isaac a long stare once more, nodded sharply and then stepped out of the way for the two of them. “Have fun, noob,” he said, accent thick.

“Thanks,” Isaac said, trying his best to smile and look relaxed. “Thanks very much.”

Inside the space, the crowd was starting to gather. On a small stage, a group of musicians were busily pounding out a frenetic rock tune. The performance was excellent, especially the singer, whose voice was hitting high notes and low with the passion of a professional rock ballad crooner. Isaac was impressed, if a bit surprised. “I didn’t expect a straightforward live performance from professional musicians,” he said, gesturing towards the band.

Houdini looked towards the stage, and suddenly a devilish grin crossed his features. “That? Those aren’t professionals. They’re just people that we drag out of the crowd and throw on stage. Usually as an initiation rite. Which reminds me, we should probably introduce you to everyone, right?” Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed Isaac by the arm and started dragging him towards the stage.

“What? No, Houdini, stop. There’s no need for that. I’m a composer, I don’t perform. I haven’t touched a musical instrument for almost thirty years!” Isaac tried to pull away, but the group of people surrounding the stage seemed to notice his struggle, and rather than helping him, they aided Houdini in pushing him forwards. Eventually Isaac was shoved, unceremoniously, onto the platform, sprawling on the sticky surface of the stage on his hands and knees.

Above him, the faux band finished the current number with a flourish. The audience applauded and cheered, and the lead singer took a bow before placing his microphone in the stand and stepping forward to help Isaac to his feet. He leaned back towards the mic and said, “Looks like we have a new volunteer, everyone!”

His statement was met with raucous laughter, jeering, and smattered clapping from the crowd. Isaac, feeling mortified, tried to escape the singer’s grip.

“Relax, man,” the singer said. “This is a rite of passage for all of the noobs. If you bail now, you’ll be ridiculed the rest of the night. I promise, you only have to perform one song, and then we’ll let you off the hook, okay?”

“But I don’t play any of these instruments!” Isaac whispered frantically.

The singer sniffed with amusement. “No experience required, trust me. But if you don’t want to play, how about the mic?”

Isaac eyed the microphone stand dubiously. There was only one singer that lived at their apartment, and he wasn’t it. The few times he tried to hum or sing a song to Emily, he could see her visibly cringe. Still, singing for these people might be the easiest and quickest way to get this over with.

“Fine,” he said, resignedly. “The crowd’s going to hate this, but fine. One request though, can we play something a little older? From my generation of music?”

The singer patted him soundly on the back. “Classics are always welcome, man!” He handed Isaac a handscreen. “Here’s a list of songs the other band members can play with you. Your implant will give you all the vocal cues you need, okay?”

Isaac tapped at the screen, trying to find something he could sing. He barely even recognized most of the selections, even ones classified as classics or “oldies.” Finally, he saw a song by Oasis that he both recognized and imagined he could muddle through. He gave it a tap, cueing the song for the rest of the band.

The singer gave him one more friendly pat and stepped off the stage. Nervously, Isaac took his place at the center of the stage. The music started, and Isaac grasped the microphone, holding on for dear life. His implant whispered the opening lyrics into his ears, and even gave him the opening note to sing.

“Maybeeee, I don't really want to know…How your garden grows…I just want to fly.” Isaac’s voice was soft at first, but he was surprised by how good he sounded. He expected his voice to crack from nervousness, or for his first note to be horribly off-key. But no, he sounded remarkably good, even to his discerning ears.

“Lately did you ever feel the pain? In the morning rain, as it soaks you to the bone?” As the song progressed, Isaac’s confidence grew. He could see audience members smiling at him and goading him on. Some of them were even singing along with him.

“Maybe I just want to fly! I want to live, I don't want to die ! Maybe I just want to breathe, maybe I just don't believe! Maybe you're the same as me, and we see things they'll never see. You and I are gonna live forever!!”

Isaac was used to performing, but not like this. He’d never been a musician. He’d dabbled at the piano keyboard as a youngster, but even that was never his forte. His skill had been in writing music, not playing it. He let the experts handle that aspect of the performance. But now, standing center stage and belting out a song while a backup band strummed out power chords and drummed a powerful thumping beat, Isaac began to understand why so many youngsters aspired to be rock stars. The visceral feeling of controlling the crowd just by the sound of your voice was…it was pure joy. As he realized how good it felt, he thought about Emily standing on stage singing last night, and had a sharp pang of jealousy. He had been the composer, but it was her voice that really had controlled the show. Now that he knew what it felt like to have that kind of control, he envied her ability.

But right now, the stage was his, not hers. He sung with even more vigor than before, yanking the microphone from its stand and marching down to the edge of the stage to address the crowd more directly. The front row howled and shouted, holding their hands up for him to slap and shake while he sang. Isaac sang his heart out, clutching the microphone in his hands and pouring his soul into the lyrics, letting the music and the crowd's adulation carry him along.

"Gonna live forever!" he sang. "Live forever!" echoed the crowd. "Forever! Forever! Forever!"

When the song finally ended, Isaac was jubilant. He pranced across the stage, high-fiving and bumping knuckles with the other musicians. From the audience, a chant began. More! More! More! Isaac looked at the other musicians. "Up for one more?" he asked. They all just grinned and nodded.

Their next song was actually a favorite of Isaac's, though it was completely outside his normal tastes. The guitar riff started, and immediately the crowd gave another cheer. Apparently AC/DC still had some street cred, even with the Discord Crowd.

Back in Black was a challenging song to sing, but Isaac, now completely in the groove, sang each note with wild abandon. The other band members were having a good time of it as well, with the guitarist breaking out into some of Angus Young's signature dance moves. Isaac grinned at him as they both worked the crowd for everything they could get.

The song was over long before it should have been, and Isaac would've happily gone a third round, but he spotted another poor sap being pushed towards the stage. Realizing his time was up, he gave one last bow to the audience and handed the microphone to the new arrival. "I warmed them up for you," he shouted in the man's ear, barely audible over the cheering. "You'll be fine!"

Isaac wove his way through the audience, smiling and laughing as various people congratulated him on his inaugural performance. Eventually he ran into Houdini, who was talking animatedly with a guy twiddling a sound board.

"Did you see?" Isaac asked, breathless.

"Yeah," Houdini answered, distractedly. "Good job. Listen, I need to get some things prepped. Can we catch up in a few minutes?"

Isaac, coming down from his adrenaline high, tried not to be disappointed by Houdini's less-than-enthusiastic response. "Um, sure. No problem."

Houdini, perhaps hearing something in the tone of his voice, gave him a grin. "You did good, gramps. The crowd loved it! Go grab a drink in the corner over there, and I promise I'll meet up with you as soon as I get some tech details ironed out, okay?"

Isaac looked over to where the boy was gesturing, and saw doorway into a smaller room, its entrance covered by a curtain. He walked over and he got closer, his implant began to thump relentlessly as a dance track cued up. With trepidation, he pushed back the curtain and entered the gloomy space.

The inside of the room looked much larger on the inside than it appeared from the outside. It must have been a trick of the lights, what little there were. The room was crowded with people, all of them wearing the slick evening wear you'd expect to see at a swanky downtown nightclub. In one corner was a bar, where bartenders were hustling to serve drinks to the swirling mass of people. Isaac slowly moved through the crowd towards the bar to see if he could squeeze in and order something.

Someone jostled him hard, and to avoid falling over, he had to reach out and grab the person, steadying both of them with his embrace.

"Well," said a sultry voice, somehow crystal clear over the dance beat, "it's nice to meet you, too."

"Sorry," Isaac said, "I didn't mean to—" He looked down into the eyes of the woman he was holding, and his voice stuck in his throat, his heart beating rapidly. The woman's long dark hair was swept forward over her face from their collision, but he could still see smoky dark eyes flashing , a crooked smile on painted red lips. She was striking, and Isaac was instantly smitten.

"Do you want to dance?" she asked, piercing him with her stare, daring him to say no.

Isaac hated to dance. "Sure," he heard himself say. He let her lead him by the hand to the dance floor. They swayed together to the music, moving much too slowly and dancing much too closely for the beat. The woman rested her hands on his shoulders, her eyes locked to his. Isaac placed his hands gingerly on her swaying hips, breathing in her perfume and trying his best not to stumble while they danced. He felt like an awkward teenager, his palms sweaty, his breath ragged. This woman, somehow, had completely bewitched him. The feeling was almost…overwhelming.

The woman leaned forward, placed her lips against his ear, and whispered, "Thanks for the dance." She patted his cheek, her hand warm and soft, her fingernails lingering lightly across his chin, and with a smile, she was gone.

Almost relieved, Isaac stumbled off the dance floor and forced his way up to the bar. "Something strong," he shouted at the bartender. "And fast." He drummed his fingers on the bar, willing his nerves to calm down. While he was waiting for his drink, a young woman squeezed in next to him and tried, unsuccessfully, to hail one of the bartenders. She was totally unlike his earlier dance partner, with bright blue eyes, high cheekbones, and blonde hair tied back in a casual ponytail. At the moment, she was looking very frustrated by her inability to get a drink.

With a sudden urge of chivalry, Isaac held up his hand and whistled sharply. One of the bartenders looked askance of him, and Isaac turned to the girl and said, "What do you need?"

"Four vodka tonics, please," she said.

Isaac repeated the order for the bartender, who nodded and started pouring. When he delivered the drinks, Isaac reached into his wallet and pulled out a wad of cash. "They're on me," Isaac said, paying for his drink and the woman's.

The girl looked at him gratefully. "Thanks," she said. "You're quite the gentleman."

Isaac smiled easily. "It's my pleasure." He'd never been good at talking to strangers or striking up small talk, but something about the girl made it easy. "Back when I was your age, I'd start with, 'Come here often?'"

The girl laughed. "You can't possibly be that old!"

They spoke for a few minutes, Isaac continually come up with charming one-liners that continually prompted giggles from his new friend. Finally, the girl pointed to the drinks on the bar and said, "I need to take these drinks to my friends. Maybe we can talk later?"

"I hope so," Isaac said. "If I don't see you, enjoy the rest of your evening."

The girl put a hand on his arm and squeezed. "Thanks! It was a pleasure talking to you."

The next hour followed much the same pattern. Isaac would bump into someone, or make eye contact across the room, and he would feel an irresistible desire to strike up a conversation, or share a drink, or spend a few moments together on the dance floor. It was like a continual progression of "love at first sight" moments, over and over again.

He was finally rescued by Houdini. "You having fun with Spark?" he asked Isaac.

"I…don't know. What's Spark?"

Houdini shook his head. "Oh, I see. You're a natural Don Juan, is that it? You're always this charming with the ladies?"

It took Isaac, hazy with too much alcohol, to process what Houdini was saying. "Are you telling me that all these conversations were…forced, somehow?"

"No, gramps. All these ladies just find elderly men irresistible. " The boy rolled his eyes. "Of course things are being manipulated. We're at a Discord rave, remember? Spark is one of the earliest Discord riffs. It randomly picks pairs of people in the room to have spontaneous connections. Puppy love, every five minutes. We set up a Spark bar at every rave. It's one of our major attractions, even though the piece has been around for years."

Isaac wasn't sure if he felt betrayed, or relieved. He hadn't really done anything wrong, short of having a few conversations and a few dances, but his conduct still would've upset Emily. Or not. She was pretty easygoing about these kinds of things. But no matter: his actions had been coerced by his implant, not willingly instigated by him. He didn't need to feel guilty about his flirting, because he was just participating in the Discord riff.

Isaac was annoyed at how flimsy the excuse sounded, even to himself. Gruffly, he said, “Do you have something else in mind for tonight, Houdini?”

“Of course! You didn’t think the highlight of the evening was going to be some forced small-talk, did you? Spark is old news. Tonight we’ve got some cutting-edge stuff planned. That’s what I came in here for. To tell you that we’re going start the main events soon. Finish your drink and let’s go.”

Outside the Spark bar, the main room had been completely reconfigured. Scattered throughout the space were platforms and tables of a variety of shapes, sizes, and heights. The crowd was being encouraged to step up onto the raised surfaces, leaving the floor empty.

Houdini hustled Isaac up onto the closest table, where they joined four other audience members. “We have two new pieces tonight. Ghazali’s is the main event, so it’ll happen later. This piece is a new riff from Ekhardt. He hasn’t told anyone a word about it. But if it’s anything like his other Discord’s, it’ll be fun.”

Isaac said, “Ekhardt? You don’t mean Peter Ekhardt, do you?” Peter had been a friend of his, a brilliant composer who had focused mostly on commercial work for movies and television. As the soundtracks for visual media had gotten usurped by Theme prediction algorithms (after all, the best soundtrack for your favorite movie is one chosen from your personal library of music), Peter had dropped out of the industry. Isaac hadn’t spoken to him in years.

Before Houdini could answer his query, the lights went out. The room slowly fell silent as the audience waited to see what would happen next. Isaac squinted into the darkness, trying to see what was happening around him.

Eventually the lights started coming back on. But it wasn’t the house lights that now illuminated the space. It was the soft, pale glow of the moon. The ceiling of the rave warehouse was gone, replaced by grey clouds racing overhead, a smattering of stars strewn across the inky sky like shards of glittering glass. The moon rose quickly, swollen and full, and dominating the horizon.

Isaac and his companions were standing on the top of a towering skyscraper. All around them were the many other buildings of the city, and each one was crowded with people. The farthest building was miles away, but even so, Isaac could make out tiny people milling about on its rooftop. Isaac stepped to the edge of his particular building and looked over the edge. The street, empty at this time of the night, looked dizzyingly far away.

Houdini, who was also looking over the edge with him, grinned wildly. “Nobody tweaks perception like Ekhardt!” As if to prove a point, he spit over the edge of the building. Isaac watched as the spittle fell towards the ground, eventually losing sight of it far before it ever struck the pavement. Watching it made him feel dizzy.

“What’s the point of all of this, exactly?” he wondered aloud as he stepped away from the seemingly perilous edge.

“Just wait,” Houdini said. “We’ll find out soon enough.”

As predicted, they didn’t have to wait long. From a neighboring rooftop a woman let out a blood-curdling scream. The group that had been clustered there was now scattered to the far edges, except for one individual that was crouched in the middle of the roof, writhing around and emitting strange mewling noises. Isaac watched, spellbound, as the figure metamorphasized before his eyes, growing in stature until their clothing twisted and tore, tattered pieces falling away from the new shape forming on the rooftop. Transformation complete, the creature lifted its head, opened its muzzle, and howled gleefully.

“Holy Mother, is that a—?”

The figures sharing the rooftop with the creature were panicking. One climbed over the edge of their building and, screaming, fell to their death. Another person took a running leap off of the roof…and came soaring across the sky towards them, landing with a crunch just a few feet from where Isaac was standing. Isaac stared at the man, who looked just as surprised by his method of escape as Isaac was.

“We need to go,” Houdini said, pulling on his sleeve.

“Go? Go Where? Why do we—?” His question trailed off as he turned to face Houdini and saw a young woman behind him lying on the roof, her limbs twisting impossibly as she went through the change. Isaac let himself be dragged away from the sight, following Houdini to the side of the building. The boy grabbed his collar and forced his gaze out over the city.

“There,” he said, pointing. “Do you see it?”

Isaac followed the boy’s arm, squinting into the moonlit cityscape. There, towards the middle of the city, was a squat building lit by a series of spotlights. “I see it,” he said. “What is it?”

Houdini’s look was inscrutable. “Salvation,” he answered cryptically. Then he let go of Isaac’s collar, waved at him, and leaped off the rooftop. Isaac watched as the boy’s incredible jump took him arcing to a rooftop a few hundred yards away.

Behind him he heard a low growl, followed by screaming from the other roof occupants. Isaac didn’t dare turn around, instead closing his eyes, taking a deep breath, and jumping after Houdini. His jump, however, wasn’t nearly as confident as the boy’s, and as a result his trajectory wasn’t nearly as high or long. Isaac started flailing his arms, wind pressing hard against his body as he fell.

Luckily, there was another, lower rooftop close to their original building. Isaac landed hard, rolling across the gritty roof surface and skidding to a halt just before tumbling off the edge. He pushed himself up, dusting off his pants and wondering how he had escaped any noticeable injury after such an incredible fall. Then he looked up, watching as more and more people began leaping across the skyline, and realized there were more important things to worry about. Like, for instance, he was going to escape from the creatures that were causing everyone to flee. Creatures that could only be described as werewolves. Isaac spun around, trying to find the building Houdini had pointed out earlier, but it now must’ve been obscured by some of the taller building surrounding. Instead, Isaac had to find his next rooftop destination.

His next jump was much more powerful, taking him up and over the distant streets and landing smoothly on a neighboring building. There was another person standing there, and they both grinned at each other for a moment. Then they went their separate ways, each leaping impossibly into the darkness towards another perch.

On one rooftop, Isaac arrived to find a werewolf slashing a poor woman with long, bloody claws. The woman shuddered once and was still. Slavering, the werewolf bent over the woman, picked her up, and hurled her off the rooftop. Then the creature turned towards Isaac, glowing yellow eyes causing Isaac’s heart to ice over with fear.

The creature snarled and lunged towards him. Isaac, without thinking, jumped straight up, and with his new gravity-defying powers, his jump launched him thirty feet into the sky, up and over the werewolf. He landed back on the roof back to back with the creature. Panicking, Isaac slammed his hips into the creature, trying to dislodge it from the rooftop. The werewolf tipped over the edge with a howl, but as it fell one clawed hand snatched the roof’s edge. Isaac didn’t wait for the creature to recover. He jumped.

As he flew, he finally spotted the building that Houdini had pointed out earlier. It only took a few more death-defying jumps to finally place him on the ground in the courtyard of the building, where numerous other people were milling about.

Houdini and a companion came lumbering out of the building, carrying a wooden crate between the two of them. They dropped it unceremoniously on the ground in the courtyard, and Houdini kicked it open with his booted foot. Inside was a pile of old-style revolvers. The boy picked one out of the crate and popped open the cylinder. With a practiced movement, he shook loose the bullets into his palm and examined them. Then he held one up for everyone to see.

The bullet gleamed brightly in the moonlight. Silver-tipped. Werewolf killers. “We have a limited supply,” Houdini said, “Let’s just hope it’s enough.”

Enough for what, Isaac wondered. But then he looked up and understood. The moon, racing across the sky, was now almost at its zenith. If they could survive until the moon set, the werewolf threat would be over. They just had to last that long. Reluctantly, Isaac took a gun from the pile and tucked it into his belt. “Do we stay here, or spread out?” he wondered aloud.

“Staying here makes us sitting ducks,” said a man standing next to Isaac. “I say we scatter throughout through the city. We’ll stand a better chance hiding separately.”

“Couldn’t we just set up a barricade here?” a woman asked, pointing to the bunker-like building behind them. “Safety in numbers, right?”

The group seemed evenly split between the plan to hunker down or spread out and hide. The solution was simple: anyone that wanted to head back into the city did so. The rest of them, including Isaac and Houdini, gathered together to plan their defense. Rather than stay on the ground, they all took a quick hop up to the top of the bunker building. There they created a perimeter, each person responsible for a particular avenue of attack. While they waited, revolvers drawn, echoes of screams and howls bounced through the concrete canyons. The screams became less and less frequent, while the howling grew ever closer.

When the first attack came, it was almost too fast to follow. A huge shadow of teeth and fur fell from the sky, landing behind a terrified woman who turned and fired her gun much too early, causing the shot to go wide. The werewolf grabbed her by the arm, knocking the gun away. He then leaped away, dragging the woman with him, her desperate scream trailing after her. It cut off suddenly, and the remaining survivors were left alone again, sweating and waiting for another attack.

Houdini sidled up to Isaac. “We’ll never survive this way, gramps,” he whispered. “They’re too fast for us.”

“You’re probably right. But what do you suggest?”

Houdini pointed to some of the nearby buildings. “Next time we’re attacked, head for cover nearby. Then, when they attack again, we can use the new vantage points to pick them off from a distance.”

“What about these other people?” Isaac protested. “We’re just going to leave them here?”

“Sheep for the slaughter, old man. We need them as bait for this to work.”

Isaac didn’t like the plan one bit, but he couldn’t offer up any alternative ideas. If they waited here with the rest of them, they were as good as dead. He didn’t have a lot of time to ponder the issue, as another attack came suddenly.

This time there were two werewolves, acting in concert. Isaac, panicking, didn’t wait around to see what they would do. He found a mid-story building nearby and immediately jumped for it. He knew he was leaving his companions to a horrible fate, but he also knew that he couldn’t do anything about it. He had to save himself.

He reached his new perch and hid in the shadow of a large gargoyle. Looking down at the bunker rooftop, he could see that the remaining defenders were doing their best to regroup. He also saw that the most recent defense wasn’t a complete failure. It looked like someone had managed to shoot one of the werewolves. The creature was lying on the roof, snapping and whining in pain. As Isaac watched, the creature slowly reverted back to the shape of a normal man. The poor soul looked almost relieved by the end of the transformation, and then he closed his eyes and fell silent.

Isaac hadn’t paid attention to where Houdini had jumped, and scanning the rooftops now, he didn’t see any sign of him. He hoped the boy had found his own hiding spot away from their lycanthrope hunters. Isaac tucked in tightly next to his stone guardian and propped his gun on a cement outcrop, the barrel pointed squarely at the bunker below. He watched the surrounding buildings, waiting anxiously for the inevitable return of the werewolves.

When they came, it was en masse. At least five of the beasts landed amongst the bunker defenders, causing panic and wild gunfire. Isaac took a deep breath, carefully aimed at the nearest creature, and fired. The sound of his revolver was deafening, and the weapon kicked up a huge amount of smoke and a bright flash when it fired. He blinked his watering eyes, trying to see if he’d hit his mark. One the rooftop, he saw the werewolf clutch at its throat and fall to its knees. Gritting his teeth, Isaac shifted his aim to another beast and fired again, this time more prepared for the kickback. Another werewolf toppled. From a far rooftop opposite him, Isaac saw a flash and watched as a third werewolf slumped. A second later the sharp sound of retort reached him.

The remaining two werewolves, realizing they were being ambushed, quickly abandoned their attack. One of them must’ve seen the flash of his gun, because the animal jumped right towards Isaac’s building. Terrified, Isaac tried to shoot it in mid-air, but without the cement outcrop to study his hands, the gun was too unwieldy for precise aiming and his shot missed. The creature landed gracefully on all fours next to him, baring bright yellow teeth and snorting at him. Isaac raised his gun for another shot, but the werewolf swatted the gun aside with a simple swipe of his paw. The gun flew from Isaac’s hand and disappeared off the edge of the roof. Meanwhile, Isaac fell off-balance, stumbling to the edge of the roof and toppling over.

By pure luck, he managed to reach out and grab the gargoyle, catching himself before he fell to the pavement so far below. He swung precariously, fingertips scrabbling for purchase on the slippery stone surface of the statue’s hideous face. Behind the gargoyle, Isaac could hear the clicking of the werewolf’s claws as it advanced towards him.

He considered letting go. Falling to his death seemed a far better choice than letting the horrid werewolf capture him. But before he could release his grip he heard a slight whooshing sound. He pulled himself up toward the gargoyle and peered around it, only to see Houdini standing tall on the rooftop, gun pointed at the back of the looming werewolf’s head.

“Bye bye,” Houdini said, and pulled the trigger.

With a loud boom, the werewolf’s head exploded. Headless, the creature crashed forward and fell towards Isaac. He had to pull himself even more tightly against the statue, barely avoiding a collision. The werewolf body brushed past him and fell silently to the street.

“Need help?” the boy asked, peering around the statue and grinning at him. He held out his hand.

Rather than take the offered hand, Isaac reached forward and snatched Houdini’s gun from his belt.

“What the—?” Houdini exclaimed.

Bang! Isaac pulled the trigger, and behind the boy another werewolf coughed, dropped to its knees, and then fell on its face.

Isaac smiled wearily and offered the gun to Houdini. But suddenly there was no gun. And Isaac wasn’t hanging from a gargoyle a hundred feet above the street. He was clutching the leg of a table, looking up at Houdini sitting on top of the table and grinning from ear to ear.

“We won!” the boy said, slapping him on the shoulder.

Feeling silly, Isaac let go of the table leg. “We won?” he said, feeling confused and stupid.

“Yeah, the virt, we beat it! Amazing! No one ever wins against Eckhardt’s stuff!”

Isaac’s senses were returning to normal as he stood up and looked around. Other people were recovering from the simulation, laughing and sharing stories. He rubbed at his eyes, trying to gain perspective over the past few minutes. “That was…totally believable.”

Houdini nodded knowingly. “It was hi-res, no doubt. Eckhardt stepped up his game. Man, I gotta take a look at his nerveware tracks later!”

“Was all of that simulated? The werewolves, were they software, or were they just other people playing the game?”

“You got werewolves?” Houdini said, eyes wide. His eyes grew distant for a second. When they snapped back into focus, he was shaking his head in wonder. “Damn. Over ten major plot paths, each one with at least three variations. The man is incredible!”

“What are you babbling about?” Isaac demanded.

“The virt, it wasn’t a single story. It was a layer of multiple scenarios, all built to work in sync with one another. You, apparently, got a werewolf story. I was on a completely different track. Mine was set in an asteroid field. I was jumping from asteroid to asteroid dodging space pirates.”

“You were…what?” Isaac’s mind reeled. “But you were there, with me, shooting werewolves with silver bullets.”

But Houdini was shaking his head. “Not me. I was shooting space pirates with a ray gun. And based on my perceptions, so were you. We each had a completely different perspective on the events of the game. And we weren’t the only ones. Eckhardt had bunch of different settings: a zombie scenario, a real pirate adventure, a prison escape.” The boy shook his head again. “I was positive that Ghazali’s new work would be a showstopper, but after all of that…”

“So, no one had the same story? We each saw things differently?”

“Welcome to Discord,” the boy said for answer. “To each their own, gramps!”