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The headache woke him, and it only got worse when Trevor instructed his implant to deal with it. He was an Orr, headaches were for other people. He cursed and reached for the guy--guys?--next to him; tried to. His arms didn't respond, nothing did.

"What the fuck?" his mouth worked, but he sounded slurred. Had Tucker gotten him drunk? He was going to hack his brother's implant and override that chastity setting, so it was on all the fucking time. Let him deal with not being able to fuck for a while, then the two of them were going to have a talk about getting Trevor drunk.

"Welcome back," someone said. Not Tucker, not his father either, who would already have dealt with Tucker for this. Chastity was too good for his brother.

Without any other choice, Trevor opened his eyes and regretted it immediately. He tried to shield them, but his arms still didn't respond. The room was way too bright.

"Yeah, sorry about that," the man said, not sounding particularly apologetic, "a side effect of the disruption is that your body's slow to respond to stimuli. Your vision should adjust." The man sat in front of Trevor, a shape more than a person.

"Who?"

"Lower the disruption eight percent. If we're getting this level of cognitive disruption, it's too high. I guess the security on his model isn't a tough as most of the elites."

The light dimmed, no, his eyes adjusted, and the form defined itself; a raccoon in a nice enough suit. Memories flooded in; I do not Consent. Tracking Bobby, talking with Logan, finding Bobby. Now the not-Bobby sitting before him.

"Who the fuck are you?" Trevor asked, the slurring gone, turned into a snarl.

"Should I raise it?" a voice asked, behind Trevor's seated form. A man, indeterminate age. Trevor couldn't move his head to look at the speaker.

"No," the not-Bobby replied. "He deserves a little anger; after all, the mighty Orrs aren't used to being conned. And if he could move, he'd have done so already.

"Who are you?" Trevor asked.

"I'd think that's obvious," the not-Bobby motioned to himself. "I haven't changed that much, have I?"

"You're not Bobby, if that's what you're trying to say."

The man smiled. "Not just a nice cock after all. Don't worry, I didn't use it while you were unconscious. Unlike my son, I'm female-exclusive." The raccoon patted his leg. "I'm guessing the lack of a brace gave me away."

"More like being an asshole," Trevor replied, parsing what the man said. "You can't be his father, I spoke with him, he's in a cell in Wichita."

"Just a shadow of who I was. I'm not an asshole, as you seem to believe. I give my previous selves the out they want. Logan set himself up with a nice, rich widow that he actually cares about." The man smiled. "Now, that was a sign I needed to move on to a younger body; when I get all moody and fall in love." He shuddered. "I thought about wiping him, as a payback for all those mood swings. I almost didn't go through with the transfer this time, Bobby doesn't deserve it," he said, mimicking an old man speaking. "That's what he was made for. Nothing else. They get a life until I'm ready to take over. Of course, this one had to go and be clever."

The man made no sense whatsoever. He'd stolen Bobby's identity, that was clear. The retyping was top notch. The DNA ID would also be perfect, Trevor expected. That he was speaking freely, if not entirely sanely, didn't bode well for Trevor, but he remembered enough of his military training to remain calm. Focus on one problem at a time, was the mantra his instructors pounded in his head as they had him run to exhaustion, or crawl through a shooting field with beams calibrated to pierce his flesh. Don't get overwhelmed by everything you have to do, because then you're dead. Identify the first problem, fix it, then move on to the second. He'd hated every second of his year there, but seemed dad was right. It served a purpose.

"What did Bobby do?" Trevor asked to keep the raccoon talking. His first problem was one of time. The instant the not-Bobby was done, Trevor was dead, so he had to keep him talking.

"My son," the not-Bobby said, glaring at Trevor, "worked out what I was going to do faster than he should have. He wasn't supposed to be that smart. Just enough above average so he could function, get enough money to keep up with his medical needs, but not be in a position to seek out actual experts."

Trevor partially tuned the man out as he ranted about Bobby being too smart for his own good, and tested the limits of his implant, of his mind. Whatever they'd done to him, it affected his implant only. Trevor was more cognizant of its limits because he spent so much time working with it. Tucker might be the only other in his family to know his implant as well as Trevor, being military and all that.

There was a myth that every corporation promoted, that implants were unhackable. They had to push it; because the moment the population realized that while extremely secure, the implants weren't entirely so, it would be chaos and the Anarchists would jump on it. The divisions going after any hacker targeting implants received a lot of money, all the tech, and the experts. On top of that, Uncle assigned a high percentage of his processing power to catching anyone attempting it before they could realize it was possible. The only other thing Uncle ever put more processes into was keeping other AI's from coming into being, although now that the point was moot, his artificial relative wasn't at militant about it as he'd used to be.

But Trevor's implant wasn't like that of the average citizen. He had a suite of extra security programs that had been installed when he was a child, on top of that he'd created his own programs to add to that. He wasn't so arrogant to think he'd made his implant unhackable, but there was no way this man, this not-Bobby, could have gotten in while they talked in the restaurant. Which meant this was physical. That was supported by the comment about reducing the disruption. And a physical attack could be programmed around, Trevor only had to find the parts of his implant that weren't affected.

"Well?" the not-Bobby asked.

Trevor cursed. He'd been so focused he'd lost track of the rant. The playback was spotty, but enough was there to piece together what the man asked about.

"Well, what?" Trevor replied defiantly. "You really think I'm going to give you what Bobby sent me?"

"My son," the not-Bobby snapped. "I'm Bobby."

Trevor snorted. "No, you're not. Not until you have all his access, right?" Trevor couldn't work out if the man had explained how Bobby had done it. His short-term memory recording was affected by the disruption, which only left his organic counterpart and he had to pay attention for that to stick.

"And once you give it to me, our business will be done and you can go home."

Trevor narrowed his eyes. "Right, me, an Orr, who knows what you look like. I take it you aren't a fan of movies. Even the Bonbo movies know better than to put that trope in the script. Once we're done, I'm dead."

"No, I won't kill you," the not-Bobby said, in a tone that didn't imply release either. "I have people lined up who will pay great money for your body. It's surprising how many people want to puppet an Orr. And that's without counting Vanguard. I'm sure they would make me rich beyond my dreams, but you don't have to worry about that. I'm a criminal, not a traitor. My loyalty to my corporation is higher than my greed."

"But not so high as to respect one of the corporate family."

The not-Bobby shrugged. "I would, but you're the one who went and stepped into my plans. I didn't seek you out for this." He smiled. "But I am thankful. My son's bank account was going to make starting as him tougher than I like. Now my biggest concern is going to be making sure no one notices the sudden influx of wealth."

"Which you can't do without access to Bobby's information," Trevor said. "At the very least you need his client list, so you can build them so they'll fit the profile. I'm guessing you don't have access to his accounts either, since you'd be able to work that backward. Why don't you hire an expert to get that? It would be simple enough."

"Are you volunteering?"

Trevor snorted.

"To answer your question, I'm not going that path because I don't actually trust my allies. They're a recent change and not one entirely of my decision. They've been good to me, but only because I'm the only one with the know-how. If I let one of them into my son's information, it's possible they will find my secrets, at which point they no longer need me."

"Bobby stole whatever this is?" Trevor laughed. "He pulled one on you? Go Bobby."

"Maybe," the not-Bobby snapped. "I don't know. My son managed to access somethings in the early part of the transfer and include that in what he sent or hid. I can't take the chance it's that. So I need to retrieve it myself." He motioned to whoever was behind Trevor. "With some assistance."

"Well, I have some bad news. As far as I can tell, what Bobby sent me got corrupted. All I received were bits and pieces of something. I ran it through every decryption program in existence, I even wrote three specifically to make sense of it. It's garbage."

The not-Bobby smiled. "My son is cleverer than you give him credit for. You received part of the information, not all of it. Once I have your section, I'll have everything I need to decrypt it myself." He tapped the side of his head. "My son wasn't fast enough to erase his encryption keys from his mind before I took over. So you see, the only thing you're doing in prolonging this is annoying me. And the more annoyed I am, the more likely I am to make you suffer once you give me what I want."

"Only if I give it to you," Trevor replied while following an information thread. He'd managed to find enough working components of his implant to reach out. He couldn't find the network, this place was probably caged, but there was tech, and tech meant programs, programs meant something he could use.

The not-Bobby nodded to the person behind Trevor and pain erupted, shattering his concentration. When it ended it was sudden and there were no lingering effects. His implant had tricked him into thinking the fire had been real.

The not-Bobby smiled. "You're mistaken, I can make you suffer before you give it to me. The choice is entirely yours."

Trevor reassembled the threads of his implant. Was there enough in that for him to program a painkiller? "The problem is that I'm still dead once I give you what you want. The way I see it, pain at least means I'm still alive."

"Clearly you've never been on the receiving end of real pain. You elites are so pampered. But you don't have to worry about it, the auction is over, the winner of your body has indicated they want your personality intact, only disconnected from your body." The not-Bobby scanned information. "They want your knowledge accessible, mannerisms, sexual memories? That's interesting. I wonder what they'll do with that." He chuckled. "Yeah, can't do that one. If I had a way to switch between bodies at will, I'd have a stable of me around the world. They'll have to decide on if they want into you, or someone else, or I guess I can make you programmable, if they don't think they can trust anyone walking around as one of the most powerful men in the corporation."

Trevor hurried, he couldn't risk that was more than a con to scare him, because anyone being him would be a danger to his family, and the idea he'd be in his head, watching it happen and unable to stop it? He'd rather be dead. He reestablished the connection with the outside tech. He was sure it was the disruptor since it had to have some sort of connection to his implant already. Maybe from it, he could jump to something else, something that would give him a weapon against this man.

"Boss?" the man behind Trevor called. "Something's going on with the readouts. Can you take a look?"

The not-Bobby narrowed his eyes at Trevor. "No."

"This is your tech," the man said, "I don't know it as well as you--"

Trevor almost had it. He was in the command program of the disruptor, all he needed to--

"Turn it on to max," the not-Bobby said.

Static and pain exploded inside Trevor's mind.

* * * * *

With a scream Trevor shoved the men next to him away and bolted up, nearly losing his balance as the floor gave under him. Or was it his legs? He didn't know. He stepped off the bed, made it to the door, but it didn't open. No, he couldn't be trapped. He banged on the door. Tried to get his claws into the edge so he could force it open. He had to escape.

A hand on his shoulder had him turning and snarling, ready to fight whoever tried to get him back to--

"Trevor," the tiger standing before him said, his face barely any expression on it, "you need to calm down."

Trevor wrapped his arms around the man's neck. "Dad? I was so scared." On the bed, Tucker, Terrence, Tony, Thomas, Tyson, and Francis sat, watching them.

"It's okay, you're safe now. Tucker rescued you."

"What about the not-Bobby?"

Eric tilted an ear.

"Raccoon in a suit."

Eric looked over his shoulder and Trevor looked at Tucker too.

"No raccoon," his brother said. "In a suit or otherwise. Just a bunch of tech guys working tech. They're all in custody, but they wiped their short term memory, so we don't know what they were trying to do."

"Hack me," Trevor said. Multiple people? There had only been one with the not-Bobby, right? How long had he been knocked out? What had they had time to do to him before Tucker rescued him? He looked at his family in horror. Was he a danger to them? He pushed away from his father, forced the door open, now that he knew he was on the islands.

He needed to get away from them. He had to go somewhere no one could force him to do anything against his family, at least until he did a full check of his implant.

"Trevor, stop," Uncle ordered.

He kept running. Where could he go? He needed somewhere caged, so he couldn't be sent orders, but what if the programs were already installed? If that was the case, there was nothing he could do. They would have put a program in him to make him overlook anything they didn't want him to find. Fuck. There was no choice. He needed to leave, get away as far as he could.

Space, it had to be space. Get a ship, aim it at nothing, and burn all the fuel, then destroy the controls so he couldn't turn around. Drift away until he died.

The collision made him bounce back and fall on his ass.

The mule offered him his hand. "I'm sorry," Brack said, an embarrassed smile on his face. "Are you okay?"

Trevor let himself be pulled to his feet before he realized the danger he was in. He ran around the mule, but arms caught him, and wouldn't let him go.

"It's okay," Brick said. "You're safe."

"No, I'm a danger to them! I have to get away before I hurt anyone."

"You're not going to hurt anyone, Trev," Brack said, moving before him. "We won't let you, you know that."

"You don't know what they did to me! I don't know! Don't you get it? I'm a time bomb." He fought to escape, but Brick was too strong. The two mules too fucking loyal to understand the danger they were putting everyone in.

"You're not," Uncle said.

"How do you know?"

The projection raised an eyebrow. "I know."

"Fuck you! You don't. For all I know, this is all in my head. I'm locked in a corner of my implant running around in virtual circles while someone is piloting my body, betraying all of you."

"Then what's the point of running?"

Trevor opened his muzzle, closed it. "Fuck." He sighed.

"You can let go of him now, Brick."

"What the fuck am I supposed to do now?" Trevor asked, but he wasn't sure to whom.

"You have to make a decision," Uncle replied. "This is either real, and you can trust what I tell you, or you are a prisoner within your mind and there's nothing you can do to escape it."

Trevor glared at the AI. "You make it sound so fucking simple."

Uncle shrugged. "I know this is real, so it is simple."

"You'd say that even if it wasn't."

"You know I wouldn't. If this is a construct, the only thing they have to go on is your memories of me, since they wouldn't know I existed before then, and no matter how hard they try, they couldn't find the real me to use as a template. We both know that any me, real or a construct from your memory, would tell you that if this is a construct, the best thing you can do is enjoy it while you look for a way out."

Trevor leaned against the wall. "There has to be a way to know for sure."

Uncle looked at the mules. "I need you two to leave."

"Sir, what if he runs," Brack asked.

"Then I'll have you chase him and bring him back, if his brothers don't beat you to it, they're about to get out of the room I locked them in."

"You didn't," Trevor said, offended.

"How else were we going to talk? Your father definitely wouldn't leave you alone after what was done to you." Uncle looked at the mules, who walked away. "Now, can we set some ground rules as to what might have been done to you?"

"You mean if I'm trapped inside my implant. If this is virtual."

Uncle nodded.

Trevor thought about it. "Well, if this is virtual, there code embedded into everything, even this wall."

"Yes, but I don't think it's going to help you decide if you are trapped or not. What will everything within a construct be based on?"

"Records. Anything they can pull to build personality profiles."

"What if they can't pull a profile on someone?"

"That's impossible," Trevor said. "No matter how careful we are, we've been recorded. Even I've been recorded enough time as part of interviews or family outings that a profile could be built that has good chances of fooling even dad."

"What about me?" Uncle asked.

"Okay, right, like you said, they can't find you, even if they know about you." He thought about it. "So you'd have to be based on my memories, but even there, we've interacted enough they could build something so accurate it would fool even you."

"Unless we bring something up that can't be within your implant's memory. If this is a construct, they don't have access to your organic memories."

"There're fragments of everything in it, Uncle. You know that. Every memory that I have was processed through my implant. Sure it's incomplete, but a good enough program can extrapolate decent results. You saw what it did with Brack, and you know the mess his memory was in."

"You were six years old," Uncle said, and Trevor's blood ran cold. He swallowed, opened his mouth to tell the AI not to-- "everyone had gone to New Vegas, a family outing. You were already nervous because even back then you didn't like large crowds. You were small, and adults looked gigantic to you. You clung to your father. You felt his hand slip out of yours."

"Dad didn't realize it, not immediately." Trevor hugged himself. "No one did. I was alone for so long, and then when dad did notice, the chaos of the mass of people moving around me as they panicked and looked for me."

"The media storm afterward didn't help," Uncle continued. "Everyone wanted to talk to you, contracts be damned. Your age be damned. You cried the entire time Eric pushed his way through. You felt like you'd let them down because they cut the trip short."

"How do you know that? I never told anyone."

"You told me." He indicated the halls. "When you got home, you ran off. You found a room, got in, and huddled in a corner, crying. You wanted to disappear. You wanted everyone to forget you existed, so they'd forget how much you shamed them."

Trevor had a vague memory of being curled up in a corner, wishing he could just stop existing.

"Lucky for both of us, the room you picked had a projection system, so I joined you. You told me what happened. I did my best to comfort you. I don't know that I succeeded, but you were willing to let your dad in when we were done."

"How did I keep him out?" Trevor asked. "I didn't have an implant, and nothing in this building is set to respond to a kids' touch."

Uncle smiled. "I locked it for you. You needed to be alone more than have your father hover around you."

Trevor chuckled. "I'd just about forgotten that part."

"I haven't. It's not often that this old AI gets to be a comfort to a child."

Trevor nodded. "Okay, so there's no way this is a construct. You couldn't know something that took place before I got my implant." He let a breath out. "What is the state of my implant?"

"You're clear of any intrusion or programs you didn't approve. I've locked up sixteen programs because even if you approved them, I want to talk to you about what they're there for. But that can wait until you're ready. I expect you want to do somethings before that."

"Yes. I need to contact a few people about this not-Bobby and the file I received. Turns out it's not corrupted, it's incomplete, and I have an idea who got the others. Keep the family away from me for a while, I have work to do." He entered his lobby before Uncle replied and accessed the Land's forums.

He didn't have the time to wait for anyone to log in and reply to his game messages. He used his name to get a warrant and requested the real-life contact information on Melor Bareback, Marc Bonesword, and Taro Sato. He knew their real names, but all contacts before now had been through the Lands.

Melor's player, David Medved didn't answer. His message center informed Trevor that it was against Vanguard policy to allow Orr communications with administrative level people. He rolled his eyes at that level of bullshit. Vanguard was on one of their paranoid waves again.

Marc's player, Horace Martel, just didn't connect.

That...that worried Trevor. It shouldn't happen. Horace had an implant--Nori was the only one of the guild who didn't--so he should register on the network; which meant his message center would take his call. He used his name to access his last location. At Tucker's orgy while Trevor was talking with the not-Bobby. He'd gone in, then he vanished from the network, utterly gone. Trevor didn't like this. He could only think of one thing that would do that. He looked at the news. No report of a body, but if they'd been smart, they wouldn't have left it there. Terminate him, carry their 'drunk' friend out, and destroy the body. He'd have to look into that when he had the time. The not-Bobby did say his part of the file was the only one he was missing.

Was David's message actually to hide his death?

"Please, Nori, be there," Trevor whispered as he called the last of his guild member.