by Drew Cordell
Mary turns around to face me and smiles. She’s so beautiful, and I’m thankful to be back with her though I know I shouldn’t tell her what happened, not yet at least. I’m not used to keeping things from her anymore. Her cybernetic hand, a newer model than the one she had all those years ago, is a constant reminder of what happens when I keep her in the dark to try to protect her.
“Hello, Mr. Vice President,” she says, walking through the water falling overhead and kissing me on the lips. I smile.
“Hello, beautiful.” I move into the water and scrub my head before getting a handful of mint shampoo and rubbing it into my short hair. I trace my hands over her curves, feeling soft wet skin warmed by the hot water. My fingers find familiar scars all across her body, remnants of a now distant time in our lives.
After recording my projections and traveling back to 2143, the memories don’t seem distant. I’ve avoided talking to Mary about them, not wanting to bring back the searing pain. She knows I’m struggling with reliving it in such an immersive way, but she has no idea what it is like to go so deep into projections, to trap yourself in the depths of layer upon layer of mental mapping to the point where there is a physical pressure constantly threatening to implode.
“How are your projections going?” she asks, breaking me out of my deepening thought.
I collect myself, trying not to expose my pain and the stress of it all. “All right I guess. It’s hard to relive it again. I just got to the part where we’re leaving Olympus on Anderson’s ship.”
“You didn’t come to bed until really late last night. Is there anything I can do?” She moves closer to me again and rubs shower gel on my chest and arms in soothing circles.
“I’ll be okay. Hopefully I will finish today so we can put all of this behind us.”
I desperately want to tell her that I went back in time and spoke with my father, but it isn’t an option. I’m hoping once I’m done helping my father in the past I can put all this behind me for good and focus on my life with Mary and Kimberly. I’ve been more distant from them than I want to be, and it’s because all of the stress of my secret obligations to my society. I never would have thought I’d have to do anything relating to the Omniscience Engine again after everything we had been through, but it had a funny way of reappearing in strange ways.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Mary asks, pulling me out my thoughts and back into reality.
I scrub my head under the hot water, washing out the shampoo and using the simple action as a moment to collect myself before facing her again. “Yes, sweetheart. This needs to be recorded so the world will always know what really happened.”
“I’m here for you, Jake. I can help you relax,” she says, pulling closer and kissing me again, more forcefully this time. “You have some extra time before you need to leave for work?” she asks with a silky voice.
Her eyes are captivating, and she’s wearing a sly smile as she bites her lip. I wrap my arms around her again. “I always have time for you.”
After our shower, we towel off and get dressed. I decide on my charcoal suit and sync my Nanotech modules to the microlink embedded in my prosthetic arm. Despite the fact my fighting days are long behind me, I still like to carry Nanotech just in case. It’s always better to have it and not need it then be caught unprepared. Still, I gave up carrying weapons a long time ago and insist on minimal security detail when I’m out to try to live as close to a normal life as possible. For the most part—until now, actually—it’s worked.
“Can I make you anything for breakfast?” I ask Mary.
“Whatever you’re having and some coffee please,” she says as she applies eyeliner.
“Sure thing,” I say, walking downstairs to the kitchen. Kimberly is sitting at the table eating a bowl of cereal, and I walk over and kiss her on the top of the head. “Morning, sweetie.”
“Morning, Daddy,” she says, looking up from her datapad and smiling at me.
“You want some toast or a plain omelet? I don’t mind cooking for you, you know.”
“Just some coffee,” she says casually, as if trying to trick me. I stare at her, trying not to laugh and wait for her to glance up. She does, and it reveals her playful smile.
“Nice try, but you need to wait a couple years. It will stunt your growth,” I say.
“You say that, but I’m one of the tallest girls in my class,” she retorts. “Bethany’s dad lets her drink coffee every morning and look how tall she is.”
She drew out the ‘every,’ accenting it and bringing attention to the fact. She isn’t acting spoiled; I’m actually impressed with her persuasion skills.
I sigh, as if genuinely defeated. “Does Bethany really drink coffee every morning?”
Kimberly nods in excitement, trying to sell the fact.
I give her a suspicious look and she grins. I pick up the coffee pot, then pull a mug from the cabinet. “Fine, but don’t tell your mother or my head will roll. You have a few minutes while she finishes her makeup. Just remember she’s the bad guy, not me.”
I pour her a small mug of Edgar’s dark roast coffee and add a couple spoons of sugar, a splash of creamer, and an ice cube. I stir it up and slide it in front of Kimberly, watching her face erupt in a victorious smile as she takes her treasure.
“Thanks, Daddy. You won’t regret it.”
“Yeah, yeah. Just don’t tell your mother or I’ll be in big trouble. Hurry up and drink that.”
I can’t help but smile as she drinks the coffee. I can tell she genuinely enjoys it, but then again, it’s hard not to like Edgar’s brew. I can’t make it as well as him, even now, but I’ve improved. It’s the only coffee Mary and I like to drink. Mary will know Kimberly has been drinking coffee of course, but she won’t be mad. At this point, it’s more of a running joke between us than anything else.
I open the refrigerator and pull out the carton of eggs and pre-sliced vegetables before pulling down a frying pan and starting a couple of omelets for Mary and me. Thankfully, I am a lot better at cooking and have improved over the years, learning to appreciate the art and burn a lot less of what I make. Maybe it was Bracken’s cooking lessons, or maybe it was my stubborn persistence and desire to impress Mary. Memories of our life in the Slums dart back. I remember the times I tried so hard to cook good meals, going to Edgar for seasonings and adding a pinch of this and a pinch of that to already expensive ingredients I had no business working with in the first place. The meals I cooked were mediocre at best, and it eventually got to the point where we would walk together to our favorite greasy noodle cart and take a couple Styrofoam cups of noodles back to one of our flats and eat them while we watched a movie or played cards. Those were simpler times, and despite all the bad, there were a lot of good memories.
Kimberly finishes her coffee and brings over the mug which I refill for myself. I pour Mary’s mug as well, adding a splash of creamer and spoon of sugar before setting it on the table in her place next to her datapad. Edgar’s brew has to be made extra hot to extract the flavor from the orange peels, and Mary always gives it time to cool before she drinks it.
“Kimberly, don’t forget your backpack,” I say, pointing to the chair her bag is slung over.
“Yeah, I won’t,” she says, looking up from her datapad. She has her mother’s blue eyes and long brown hair. She’s pretty and tall, and she’s growing up way too fast.
“Okay, I love you sweetie. Have a great day at school, okay?”
“I’ll try, even if I already know everything we’re learning. You did write the book on parabolic thought mapping after all.”
I smile. “Co-authored the book on parabolic thought mapping. Master Aarlen was the one with the breakthroughs. I still wish you were able to meet him. He would have loved talking with you.”
“Garrett says work with thoughts should be outlawed—that you’re trying to bring the Omniscience Engine back.”
I flip the omelets in their frying pans. “Garrett doesn’t know what he’s talking about, s
weetie. You know this already, but Artemis is narrow AI; it can’t extend beyond the project's scope. Our thoughts—the holo knowledge we create—is there to make things better for everyone, to make information and history free.”
“That’s what I told him. But then he said Lawrence is no different than Supreme Leader Evelyn Aeoxous.”
I take a deep breath, remaining calm. “Okay, that’s not true at all. Lawrence is nothing but good and you know that. He is responsible for the prosperity of our society as we know it.”
“I guess I just feel different than everyone else at school, especially since I have a security guard sit next to me in my classes.”
“I know, Kimberly. It’s for your protection. Your mother and I want you to get a great education and experience a real childhood. We just need to make sure you’re safe, that’s all.”
“Okay. Love you.”
“I love you too. Have a great day.”
Kimberly walks over and gives me a hug before stuffing her datapad into her backpack with the lunch Mary made for her last night. I kiss the top of her head. Jenson, one of the men on my protective detail walks in from the front door and escorts Kimberly out to the landing platform of our home where her cruiser is waiting to take her to school, greeting me and wishing me a good day as he leaves.
With Kimberly gone, I turn off the stove, taking the plated omelets and sitting down at the table. I sip my own cup of coffee while reading the news, waiting to eat my omelet until Mary joins me. After a few more minutes, my wife approaches and joins me at the table. She’s wearing a sleek black dress and has her long hair pinned up. “Good morning, honey,” I say.
Mary smiles at me and takes her seat, sipping her coffee and shoveling down a few forkfuls of her breakfast. “It has been a good morning, hasn’t it?”
I laugh. “Yeah. Before you find out on your own, I gave Kimberly some coffee. You know how persuasive she can be.”
She sighs. “I figured as much. You going into the office today?”
I look down at what I’m wearing. Putting on my suit is so mechanical to me at this point that I do it even if I’m not sure of my plans for the day yet.
“Not sure. I haven’t heard from Edgar, but I don’t think there are any updates on Marwin’s whereabouts. I may take the day off and try to finish my projections early. I’m ready to be done and move past all this for good.”
“I think that’s a good idea,” Mary says, eating some more of her breakfast and browsing the news on her datapad. “You see this article about the New Champions of Liberty? Someone commented and said they exhumed the old Guild Hall. It was swarming with still functioning OE-era robots.”
“The group is real, yes, but I highly doubt they managed to access the old Guild Hall. I also doubt there were HKs in there still functioning.”
“But you read the article right?”
I nod. “They’re protesting against the best, most stable society the world has ever had. We don’t have poverty, we don’t have hunger, and the social gap isn’t really an issue anymore. And there’s no evil, power-hungry government or Omniscience Engine. What they’ve done is peaceful so far, but we’re keeping an eye on them.”
I don’t really want to think about the Omniscience Engine right now. I’m still worried about it. If I don’t finish recording my projections and return to 2143 to help my father build the robot that already got me this far, I could wake up in a different world where the Omniscience Engine still exists. I can’t let that happen, and I have every intention of finishing my recordings today.
“You’re right, but they could still pose a problem. You don’t think they have anything to do with Marwin, do you?”
“I don’t think they’re involved with Marwin’s disappearance, but we are looking into everything we can,” I say, finishing my coffee and standing to pour myself a second mug. “There’s that other insurgent group we haven’t caught. They’re using a lot of robots, and they are programmed to destroy their codebase if they’re caught. We haven’t learned anything about them, and the person or organization behind the attacks hasn’t made any demands or even an announcement about why the attacks are happening.”
“Hmm, okay. I’ve got to get going. Be careful if you decide to record your projections today. Love you, Jake,” Mary says.
I take her dishes and start washing them in the sink, then kiss her before she leaves in her cruiser with her security detail. I finish washing the dishes and walk up to my office, shutting and locking the door behind me and sitting before picking up my phone. I dial Edgar’s number, and he picks up on the first ring.
“Hey, Jake. How’s it going?” he asks.
“Good morning, Mr. President,” I say.
“What can I do for you?”
“I was hoping for the day off. I’m close to finishing recording my projections, and I’d rather get it out of the way sooner rather than later.”
“Of course, but you know you don’t need to ask. Take all the time you need. You know how slow things are at the Citadel. Everything going okay?”
“Yeah, I just want to finish. It’s hard to relive it, and I’m ready to put it all behind me for good.”
“Best of luck, sir. I’ll catch up with you later. Have a good day and be on standby in case there’s an update about Marwin,” Edgar said.
“Will do. Have a good day,” I say, breaking the connection.
I pull the thought canister out from below my desk and attach the neuro-connectors to my head. Focusing on the exact point of time I want to return to my projections, I layer everything away and dive into the depths of my mind.
3 TURN
∆∆∆
[2149]
Mary, Marwin, Anderson, and I were on our way back to the Slums to regroup with the Champions of Liberty in the old modified stealth fighter. We had a map out of New York to an underground weapons lab in Vermont, seemingly protected from the radioactive desert the state had become. I didn’t doubt we’d be able to convince the Council it was our best option, especially after everything that happened in Olympus. Adrihel had died a traitor’s death, the possibility of shutting down the Omniscience Engine without further violence gone for good. The majority of the houses, out of fear or something else, had aligned with the new Supreme Leader, Evelyn Aeoxous. The new political order of Olympus was not only dangerous, but impossible to navigate. We were public enemies number one, and every other house in Olympus had reason to think we were traitors to a country they somehow still believed in or were too scared to rebel against.
In our darkest hour when it looked like there was no hope, Anderson pulled through and rescued us. Had it not been for him, we would have died without hope of making a difference. I was thankful I hid the box on Adrihel’s ship before going into the Omniscience Engine facility to attempt the shutdown of the project with the other houses. It was foolish to think the plan would work at all, but we still had no idea what the Ascendants were or how they were made. We couldn’t trust them, and it looked like our only option was levelling Olympus to create a new society.
“Can I see the letters you’ve already opened?” Marwin asked.
“Yeah,” I said, passing him the opened letters from the box.
He read them over for a few minutes before looking up at me. “I’m worried the Council is going to try to confiscate the box and whatever else you have waiting for you. I don’t think that’s a good idea, and I don’t want this bogged down by Guild Council procedures. Clearly, your father somehow knew something we don’t and so far, following his instructions has worked out well. I will vote to protect your rights to your personal property, but the others, Edgar excluded, might not see it that way.” He handed the letters back to me. “Look, it’s going to be quite a long time until you’re forty-three, and I think it would be better to tell the others that was the last envelope for you to open and hide the rest. If the Vermont lab turns out to be a dead end or a trap, we may have some new decisions to make, but otherwise, I think you and you a
lone need to hold onto everything that’s left in that box and keep it safe.”
“Thanks, Marwin,” I said.
Marwin shook his head. “No need to thank me. It’s what’s right. We’ll get back, present the data and hope it’s accurate, then probably plan the logistics of the trip. Until we can read this data, we won’t have any idea of what to expect and shouldn’t speculate too much.”
“We’re clear of Olympus’s energy barrier. Out above the Atlantic now. I’m going to turn her around and head back to the Slums,” Anderson called through our headsets.
It was too dark to see anything below us from this altitude. Clouds blocked out all the moonlight, and the darkness seemed to swallow the outline of our fighter.
“Great. Thanks, Anderson,” Marwin responded.
I didn’t know what kind of ordnance Anderson had packed in the ship, but we’d need to be well-armed in case we ran into any of the remaining HKs in the Slums or Undercity.
“Anderson, do you know anything about Shield Squad? Did they make it out?” I asked.
“Most of them made it back to HQ, but there were a few deaths,” he replied, my heart sinking. Without Shield Squad, we wouldn’t have made it to Olympus at all, and we owed them a great debt for their sacrifices. I wanted to thank them, but it would be hard to look them in the eyes and tell them that even with their friends’ deaths, we had failed. I was beginning to understand just how fragile life was. All my life I had been supported by a system ready to collapse at any moment.
“Any changes with the Scavenger Guild?” Marwin asked.
“More of the same, but we had to pull all our remaining squads from River’s Port to deal with the HK threat. The Scavengers aren’t helping of course. They won’t lend any of their mercenaries, not that we’d want to work with any of them anyway,” Anderson said, angling the ship to the left and executing a long, drawn-out maneuver to turn the aircraft back toward New York where we would enter through the open sea wall next to the Docks.
I remembered the mercenaries in River’s Port. They were gruff and unpredictable, but it might have been a good lead to work into, especially if we needed more muscle for the potential trip we were planning. I was assuming the weapons lab wouldn’t be under the control of the Omniscience Engine, but it was likely it knew about the lab which meant it might send more forces to intercept us. Either way, we needed to move quickly, but we also needed to deal with the HK threat to prevent the enemy from finding the Guild Hall. There was no telling when the Omniscience Engine would send more forces to the Slums, and it wouldn’t take much to overrun our broken Guild at this point.
