by Sean Platt
Obeying a strange sense of intuition, Kai raised her head to look at the holographic girl. She was placidly watching the cluster of people around Braemon’s monitor. A holographic girl, Kai thought, who must have come from the canvas — resurrected from Respero, if this was indeed the famous Violet James. A girl who might have actually been the data transfer Sam had noted, hacked, and then streamed over from Xenia labs.
A girl, Kai thought, who might be part of this.
“What’s the virus doing?” Kai asked.
“Fetching what Mrs. Ryan wanted,” the girl answered.
Dominic had slumped to the Quark PD hallway floor, his back to the wall, when he finally heard Noah’s voice again after their long mutual silence.
The disembodied voice simply said, “Thank you.”
Dominic looked up. After as long as he’d been trapped in the hallway, he was equally resigned and annoyed at every other cop in the city. Why had nobody realized he was in here? The hallway was in use all day long. Had foot traffic between Quark PD and DZPD been rerouted through manual detectors? Had Quark closed shop, letting DZPD spread out to handle the city? Who was running the damned Braemon fundraiser? Didn’t it seem odd to anyone that the commissioner né captain had simply vanished? Grabel should be calling him every five minutes. Without Dominic’s oversight, how were those fancy-pants diners getting their drinks refilled and their shrimp kept safely on ice?
It was beginning to feel like he might need to live here forever. Noah could have food sent in. He’d even entertained the idea that this wasn’t just a mistake — the product of a Beam glitch on the eve of Shift. Maybe this was the hallway’s plan to force Dominic to lose weight. It had been bugging him for ages, so maybe it had finally decided on tough love.
“Thanks for what?” Dominic asked.
“Sector 7 authentication required.”
“Okay,” Dominic said. “Granted.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?”
“Why the fuck not? Sure.”
But the hallway wasn’t talking to Dominic. It acted like it was obeying someone else’s commands but didn’t realize it was having a digital embolism. Stupid fucking glitchy thing. Dominic, thinking anti-technological thoughts, felt like Grandy. But right now the idea didn’t make him feel old and crotchety; it felt justified. Grandy used to bitch about over-automation, and Dominic had been bitching about idiot AI for years. He didn’t like Quark PD, Quark policies, or this stupid fucking Quark hallway that Quark hadn’t even asked the real cops if they could build. Quark had just sauntered in, swinging its big electronic dick, and added a wing to the station.
Well, this time Dominic would be the one laughing. Everyone went on and on about how The Beam had a zillion failsafes and redundancies; The Beam could be trusted; The Beam’s shit didn’t stink. Why not tie everything into the damned network? Why not let it watch everything everywhere, and hold all the cards? Why not abdicate every shred of human responsibility? Why not just have The Beam wipe everyone’s asses?
This is what you got when you let machines control everything. One glitch, and the whole goddamned thing fell to gibbering rubbish.
“Hello, Dominic,” Noah’s voice said.
Outstanding. Now it was talking like it had just rebooted. Acting like Dominic hadn’t been trapped in here for hours.
“Hello, shitbox.”
“Your environment is being conditioned. Is there anything I can do to make you comfortable?”
“Bring me a pizza.”
“Dinner has concluded. Would you like any particular music or any special projections?”
Dinner has concluded? That didn’t make sense, especially considering his pizza request had been ignored. Dominic wanted to kick the walls like Grandy used to slap his television.
“How about you let me out?”
“The process will take a few minutes. Some people like to watch projections as it proceeds.”
“What process?”
“Please. Either sit down, or lie on the cot.”
“Cot? What the shit is wrong with you?”
“Please try to be calm during your transition. This is a pleasant time of graduation.”
Dominic had been about to yell at Noah, but that last one stopped him. His mouth, which had opened, slowly closed.
“Wait,” he said.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to hear music?”
“What kind of ‘graduation’ are you talking about, Noah?”
“Your family and friends are proud of you. You are loved.”
“Noah, let me out of here.” This time, Dominic pounded the wall. Then he pounded the door. “Open up.”
“Please relax,” the soft voice said.
“This is Capt. Dominic Long of the District Zero Police Department. Override…” He stumbled. He knew this process, but he’d never had to use it — and as it turned out, keeping a clear mind and steady voice while his heart slammed in his throat wasn’t easy. “Override code…override authentication 417 dash beta.” He took a breath. “Open both ends of the transdepartmental corridor.”
“Your vital signs suggest that you are nervous. If you would like, I can release endorphins to calm you.”
“Don’t you do shit! Open this goddamned door right now!” Again, Dominic slammed his fist against the molded Plasteel.
Around Dominic, something under the wall’s skin began to whirr and change. True to the experience, light shifted, and everything around Dominic turned the ultra-brilliant white of a proper Respero chamber.
“Override authentication 417 dash beta! Open a channel to Captain Sloan of Quark PD! This is Captain Long speaking, do you fucking hear me?”
The air around Dominic shimmered with the distinct feel of a waiting electric charge. His arm hairs seemed to stand on end. He could smell the change, like fresh ozone.
“Noah! Noah, let me out of this goddamned hallway right fucking now! Open the door, goddamn you! Open this f — ”
Words could no longer leave him. The charge became more tangible. It was everywhere. Dominic felt his eyes wanting to close because they were no longer necessary. He looked down and saw a strange digital reality, his body disintegrating around a glowing center.
As Dominic watched, the glowing thing snaked out of his chest, rose into the ascending mist, and was gone.
Then the rest of Dominic broke apart and ascended to Quark’s unknown Heaven, into the soup, into nothing.
Stephen York blinked awake in what appeared to be the same apartment where he’d been Beamwalking an unknown amount of time ago. He was no longer in a strange, digital transport, assailed by microfragments. Kimmy, the girl, was gone.
In front of him was the obsolete laptop canvas he’d been using before the girl had hijacked his quest. He jumped when he realized an old woman’s face now occupied the screen. Her hair was probably naturally white, but she’d had it done in straight blonde. The woman was laughing.
York had a thousand questions, but he could only force one past his confounded lips.
“Are you Alexa Mathis?”
“I am. I’d ask how you found me, but I think I know.”
“Ms. Mathis, my name is — ”
“I know who you are, Stephen.”
York held his next question, allowing Alexa to speak.
“I should have known you’d find me. Did Rachel’s drones find you?”
York thought back to Bontauk. Noah’s avatar — an avatar who’d felt far too familiar for comfort — had sent him here. Kimmy had guided him. Too much was coincidental. Too much was perfect. There was little reason to evade, especially on something Alexa clearly already knew.
“I think I confused them long enough to get away.”
“And then let me guess: They stopped following you?”
York hadn’t thought about that. He’d clearly been running from something while also running toward Alexa; Noah’s avatar’s urgency had told him that much, even if Kimmy hadn’t mentioned pursuers during their
strange journey. But the drones hadn’t returned. He’d been prepared to evade them for days or weeks, yet he hadn’t so much as seen them again.
“Don’t try to figure it out,” Alexa said. “Rachel is a crafty old bitch. If she sent those drones to find and save you but they suddenly stopped coming, rest assured she found a different way.”
York’s eyes narrowed. “Save me?”
“I’d tell you what she told us, but I’m sure it’s only more lies. Something tells me this was never about Mindbender. At least not in the way she told Panel.”
“Panel,” said York. “So there really is such a thing.”
Alexa scoffed. She looked toward the corner of her screen then back at York, directly into his eyes. York found himself almost able to believe the old adage about eyes being windows to the soul. Despite the woman’s wrinkled skin, he felt sure he could see pure youth beneath it.
“Yes. I’m on it. Rachel is on it. Noah was on it. Same for Iggy, Craig Braemon, Jameson Gray…I could go on.”
York found himself breathless. He’d drawn the same basic conclusions years ago in the Quark lab with his reverse image search and undercover algorithms — absent Braemon and Gray, who must have joined in the interim.
“Why are you telling me all of this?”
“Because you asked.”
“But…Noah kept the secret so carefully.”
“Don’t blame Noah. The official code is that nobody speaks of our group, ever. Nobody talks outside it. Nobody meets in private without the others. And with the recent exception of Rachel, the rule was always that all meetings must be attended in person. It’s a perfect cone of silence.”
“So why are you breaking the code?”
Alexa smiled. “Because you should have been on Panel from the start.” She paused. “And because I’m dying.” She looked at her wrinkled hands, shaking her head minutely. She didn’t say more, but York knew the ghost of vanity when he saw it. Alexa should appear young, even now. Whatever she was dying of, it had either sabotaged her restoration nanos or exceeded their capacity.
“Dying?”
“It’s a long, boring story.” Alexa waved a dismissive hand. “I’m not afraid.”
“Why not?” York couldn’t help himself and wanted the words back immediately, but exhaustion had lowered his inhibitions and defenses.
“I’ve never really been afraid. Because I believe.”
“In Heaven?”
She shrugged. “In an afterlife.”
“Oh.”
Alexa laughed. “I know that ‘oh.’ It’s what everyone but Rachel used to give me. Rachel didn’t patronize. She outright called me a naive fool, and still does. Everyone else was at least polite enough to pretend that they understood my faith. But you? I’ve always wondered if you’d believe, Stephen.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve been there. You helped to build it.”
“Build what?”
“My afterlife. You were there. With Noah, at the end.”
York slowly nodded as pieces fell into place. He’d heard this about Alexa: that she was superstitious, that she believed gods could be found through anthroposophic study of the network, of other realities. If the avatar he’d heard from at Bontauk was any piece of Noah, that avatar would know what Alexa believed. What Alexa, it seemed, actually knew: a way to use what Noah had done to make her faith real.
“You’ve been uploading your mind in preparation for death. Like I did for Noah.”
Alexa nodded. “There hasn’t been much progress on the real Mindbender while you’ve been gone, but unlike Rachel, I don’t think the missing piece has eluded us because it’s something that The Brilliant Stephen York needs to help us figure out as he scrapes through ones and zeroes searching for the solution. For the record, I’m glad the assassin hasn’t found you simply because you deserve better, not because you’re the handyman that will finally fix Mindbender.”
Stephen wouldn’t normally put much stock in this conversation, but Noah had sent him to this woman, and Kimmy had guided him. It seemed that he was meant to be here, and hear what she had to say.
“Then why do you think the missing piece of Mindbender is…well…missing?”
“Because it’s a leap of faith.”
York paused.
“You don’t believe in a leap of faith?” Alexa asked.
“I’m a coder. I believe what I can see.”
“Then you should believe this. You helped Noah complete his final upload. He was sent to The Beam. There was a massive data deluge at the time — a deluge that, on today’s increasingly clogged network, is an everyday occurrence. We know Noah was fragmented. Dashed on the rocks like water from a waterfall. But you still believe he’s out there like I do, don’t you?”
York took a slow breath then nodded. He’d seen too much. He’d felt too much. Leap of faith, indeed.
“Everyone thinks I’m ridiculous, putting faith in my little program of digital hospice. Every night, my day’s new patterns are sent to The Beam. I’m as much there as I am here. The only thing missing is Frankenstein’s spark. ‘It’s alive!’ and all that. Everyone thinks it’s false hope, that one day I’ll be like Noah — that my little false self will become the real me. They think it’s like cryogenics. Remember cryogenics, when people used to freeze themselves for the future?” She chuckled. “Well, it was hard to blame them. But now I get the last laugh. Now, I can finally die.”
York looked around the room. This was too surreal. He had a strong sense of déjà vu, sure that he’d gone through this all before. He saw himself beside Noah’s deathbed twenty-four years ago, sending that final stream. Alexa was hoping for the same thing…and the worst part was York — always an objective, logical thinker — couldn’t find it in himself to disbelieve her faith.
But then something she’d said clanged in his mind like a bell.
“Wait. Now? Why now?” He squinted. “Because you’ve met me?”
“Of course not. I’m not that airheaded.” Alexa laughed. “Because not twenty minutes ago, my archive began to crawl with software I’ve never seen. It’s…I don’t know how to describe it. Holographic?”
“Your archive projects’ holograms?” It didn’t make sense.
“No. Like how every piece of a hologram contains a shadow of the entire thing? It’s…self-referential? Self-assembling?”
“Of course. It’s an archive.”
Alexa smiled. “Maybe it’s not much to you, Stephen, but to me, this is the sign I’ve been waiting for. If I die and my data breaks apart now, there are instructions in all of the fragments on how to assemble the whole. It will pull order from chaos, and then I’ll wake up on The Beam as a digital being.”
“Twenty minutes ago?”
Alexa nodded, smiling. “Quite a coincidence, isn’t it? It couldn’t have worked out better if it had been orchestrated. Or destined.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Mathis,” York said. “I just can’t believe in destiny.”
“You don’t have to.” A wider smile. “The holographic encoding happened whether you believe or not. I could show you. The software itself assembled from fragments on The Beam, as if it, itself, was a holographic archive.”
“Why now?”
“Maybe it was time.”
“But where did it come from? Not the code, but the…it must have had a codex? A way to unlock all those little pieces you say were hanging around? So where did the solution come from? The activating sequence that made them assemble, to make them into the software you’ve been waiting for?”
Alexa shrugged. “That’s not for me to ask.”
York drummed his fingers on the tabletop. Something was itching at him, but he couldn’t articulate what it was. Then suddenly he had it: He’d always been after something. He’d always been important. He’d always had a quest, or something to do. But if someone had been after him but now, per Alexa’s thinking, was no longer following him, then what did that say about what came next for th
e great Stephen York?
“So you don’t think they need me after all — whoever locked me down, saved me for later, then decided to uncork me because they needed my help to fix Mindbender.”
“Maybe and maybe not. Not everyone has my faith. Rachel tried to have you killed, but then she had a change of heart, thought you were important, and decided you were worth saving. So one idea, if you’re so inclined, is to seek out Rachel Ryan and offer your services.”
York watched the old, dying woman on his screen. There was something inscrutable in her eyes. Something she wanted him to say but wouldn’t offer a hint.
“But you don’t think I should do that.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Because there’s nothing required to fix Mindbender. Because you believe your archive will live on its own thanks to this brand-new, mysterious development.” He paused. “And that means that Mindbender already works, and has for twenty minutes now.”
Alexa nodded. “For anyone who knows about it, yes. For anyone with the access, the equipment, and the means, I believe it’s now possible to live on The Beam.”
“If I’m not here to help fix Mindbender, and going to Rachel Ryan is a mistake,” York said, “what should I do, Ms. Mathis?”
“Wait,” she said.
“Wait for what?”
Alexa smiled. “For Noah’s digital self to tap you on the shoulder and say hello.”
Sam heard the scream before he saw the girl standing in the doorway.
At first, he thought the party’s marauders had returned despite Nicolai’s strange assurance that they wouldn’t. But then he looked up and saw the girl standing alone, her back strapped with something that looked like a groundskeeper’s leaf blower, her brown hair in thick pink mats that looked like sausages made of fuzz. She was young if her appearance was natural — maybe a bit younger than Sam, perhaps a bit older. Her face had twisted into something ugly, but even as she fell to her knees in grief Sam could tell she was, in happier times, quite pretty.
“Oh shit. Oh West. Leo!” The girl dropped to her knees beside the dead man on the floor, the dead man whose head was still being cradled by the holographic girl — or, at least as cradled as a hologram could manage. Her hands went all over him, shying from the mess of blood soaking his head and shirt. Then the new girl’s head jerked toward the closest of the room’s occupants (it happened to be the tall blonde), and her eyes were momentarily hard. They softened almost immediately, perhaps as a reluctant truth dawned.
