by Gentry Race
AXIOM
Book 3 of the Cyberratum Series
Gentry Race
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
1
This would be the last time he did this to her—the last time she would see herself this way.
Miriam Madlem looked into a mirror—the black, muddied tears streaking down her face. She wiped away the gunk, lifting her petite chin and raising her perfect eyebrows.
Her face radiated a dancing shimmer that reflected her emotional being—red, with a touch of Irate, the latest in trending eMakeup. She applied thick lipstick, rendering silver and black zebra stripes that matched the gown flowing down her long legs to the floor.
Tonight was the big award party on Annulus. Miriam’s lifetime achievement. She thought of the years she devoted to her allure as a ‘Hollygram’—her body scanned and catalogued for thousands of digital productions across the world. Gone were the days of studios catering to self-absorbed stars, waiting on set to utter incoherent lines of dialogue.
She enjoyed this and remembered herself playing two different roles at two different ages in the same year. With no need for her to be present for performances, she could dedicate her time on what mattered most—herself.
A sharp rap emanated through the door, accompanied by a woman’s voice. “What’s taking so long?”
Cast in neon blue, spaghetti-strap lights contouring the bathroom, Miriam answered, “Just another moment please.”
Miriam looked at her complexion, catching the glimmer of a small, gold charm in the shape of a cube hanging from her neck. She lifted her forearm and rubbed two fingers together. Golden, angular lines cross-cut art déco patterns along her forearm, revealing an interface that rose like a second skin.
This feature, a tool of Annulusians, was physically part of the individual and similar to smart phones of the early twenty-first century. This allowed access to the bio-organic network—or simply—the wetwork.
She brushed a finger over her second skin, signaling a command to unlock the charm. It turned translucent, exposing another cube nested inside that connected at the corners. It opened, unwrapping its outer shell into four cubes stacked one on top of the other, with another four cubes attached to the second-from-top, forming a three-dimensional, double-cross syringe.
She unhooked the double-cross syringe, and in response, a port formed and extended from her elbow crease. She injected the substance and winced while tears welled in her eyes. Millions of fans followed her grace, and yet she felt so hollow.
It was him.
A rush of emotions flooded her body. The anger overwhelmed her, and she thrusted her fist into the mirror. The sought-after actress cried with pain as her grip tightened. Blood ran over white knuckles into the sink as she dropped the double-cross syringe. The sound of the syringe hitting the porcelain met her senses, and it was as if her mistakes faded away with the blood.
She washed her hands, fixed her face once again, and didn’t take notice of the wound closing to perfection. She held her hand close to her face, trying to see the nanites—tiny nano-sized machines that printed her self-image onto Annulus.
She picked up a piece of the broken mirror and concealed it in her hand. Her life, broken by the society that commodified her presence. Am I perfect? she thought. If anyone could make broken look beautiful, it was her.
“Hey, come on, lady. I have to go!” the impatient girl said from outside.
She approached the door. It phased from tinted to transparent glass before disappearing altogether.
An anorexic girl clad in a draping, hard-lined pattern dress and an irritated expression danced from the need to relieve herself.
“Don’t mind the mess,” Miriam said, passing by.
The girl looked back, shocked and then disgusted as she realized it was Miriam Madlem.
“Congratulations, Miriam,” the young girl said, a smirk on her face.
Miriam could hear the sardonic tone and ignored the girl.
“Still clinging to a decadent past?” the girl asked as she stepped into the bathroom.
Her gaze cut downward to see a gold, double-cross syringe that was mixed in with the shambles of broken glass. She picked up the familiar device and turned to Miriam, a knowing and rather condescending expression on her face. “And still a junkie, I see.”
The reaction was almost instant. In a fit of rage, Miriam charged at the girl, stabbing her in the stomach with the piece of broken mirror she still held in her hand. Unable to speak or even cry out, the girl tried to pull back only to see the wound was growing into a reflective surface—a mirror.
Miriam took a single step back, watching in pleasure. With a quick hand, she reached out and snatched the device out of the girl’s grip, folding it back into its simple cube and hooking it onto the chain around her neck.
Miriam turned and walked to the ledge of the upper balcony, looking down at a grand ballroom teeming with couples dancing. Rows of spectators encircled the ballroom while tiny sparkles glittered from the chaotic snaps to capture the moment.
In the center of the ballroom was a large hologram that projected her likeness, surrounded with small, figure-shaped trophies.
Miriam spotted a dapper man dancing with a woman dressed in an iridescent gown that changed in hue with every fluid movement. Dean was ever the ladies’ man, arranged in a black tux with fine lines.
Thoughts of the conversation she had with him earlier fluttered through her mind. “You’ll never be perfect,” he’d said.
The music stopped, and the crowd settled into their nano-printed seats. A stage then formed in front of them as a host with a sunken jaw and beady eyes ascended the steps.
Stepping up to the microphone, he spoke with a dusky voice. “We gather here tonight to bring thanks to a wonderful woman. A woman who has inspired us for many years.”
The host placed a shiny metal statue that was buffed to perfection on the podium, and the audience erupted in a formulaic clap as Miriam descended the glass stairs from stage left. The steps lit to a bright white and synched with the screen on stage that inter-cut her various roles over the years.
She stepped onto the polished wood floor, holding her hand tight. The crowd eased their cries as Miriam took to the stage. “I want to thank the small people who have helped me…” Miriam trailed off as her voice echoed throughout the room. She saw Dean look to his fatuous date, brush her hair back, and then kiss her neck.
Once again, her anger got the best of her. Miriam picked up her statue and broke it on the podium, shattering it in dozens of pieces—a couple of them large enough to use as a weapon.
The crowd responded in boos, but they quickly erupted into screams as Miriam lunged into the crowd, pushing through people beneath her. She held a broken piece of the statue in her hand, angling it like a knife.
Enraged, Miriam thrusted the jagged mirror into Dean’s side. His colorful date cried in terror as Miriam then reached toward her, stabbing her as well. The myriad of high-profile celebrities scattered in fear,
creating a hysterical circle around the insanity.
“I am perfect!” Miriam yelled.
Miriam pulled back and watched in satisfaction as the couple bled out. Their lifeless bodies outlined in blood against the brilliant ballroom floor and sprawled out like a scene from a thriller she want to star in.
Silvery liquid soon poured from the wounds, expanded and hardened in craggy mirrored sheathes over their bodies. Miriam once again picked out her appearance and admired how beautiful she was.
2
“Miriam Madlem—aspiring Hollygram. Naturalized on October 4th, 2096. She was surveyed with no negative stressors and released November 4th, 2096 with no priors,” Carter said, scanning the scene with his second skin.
Carter’s stocky features held sharp shadows in the dull green glow of the sleazy bar in the Upper Cruft.
“And she still went eradicate,” Aden said, shaking his head, his hazel eyes warm with humanity he exuded from his upbringing.
“And what of these Mods?” Solari asked, inspecting the two dead bodies before her. Solari Ducard stood at an average height for a woman, donning a short-waisted coat just above two blocky-nosed mags—standard issued weaponry, discharging bolts of magnetism to apprehend eradicates. Along the coiling read AXIOM in bright yellow.
“Her erratum is surging,” Carter said.
Carter studied the two lifeless bodies on the ground with his second skin. The epidermis raised, projecting a holographic display showing a list of records labeled ‘Axiom Archives.’ He read the records of recent releases. “Came to Annulus six months ago. Rejected for Naturalization based on psyche tests.”
“Where do you think she ran?” Aden asked, kneeling. His deep brown eyes were warm with humanity. A set of scars just below his chin set him apart from Annulisian’s, and yet, he still had a fresh youthfulness about him.
“What makes you believe she ran?” Solari asked, smug with frustration. She looked at her comrade, holding a commanding stance with nothing more than her light brown irises twinkling in the ambient bar light.
Carter affirmed her feeling. “We should have got here sooner.”
Solari followed the craggy mirror artifacts decorating the old bar that Miriam’s erratum had flung in large paint strokes. “Her erratum is getting worse.”
“How is she hiding from the sensor?” Aden asked.
Solari remained silent, watching the raised second skin on her forearm shift from a decorative flower shape to a pattern of circuited lines as she calculated a solution.
“Look what she did to my bar!” yelled the barkeep from the entrance. He raised all four of his arms—two of which were fully cyber-modded, allowing him to tend the bar more efficiently.
Solari adjusted her stance to be firm and well-balanced, something the academy had taught her over the years. “Carter, start a search,” she ordered.
“What should I do?” Aden asked.
“Don’t do anything human.”
Solari walked through the musty bar toward the commotion at the entrance. Her brunette hair lit up with a dark purple hue shifting to a green cast as she stepped under a sign that read MoTH Bar.
She placed a small puck-like device inside the door frame where the bartender waited. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know. By the time I looked up from pulling my stock, she fled and I had two dead bodies on the ground,” the barkeep said.
“Why can’t we find her?” Solari asked.
“Who knows what kind of erratum yous guys gave her. You’s doctors—”
“Cut the shit. What’s she using?” Solari demanded.
“Hey lady, no one knows what yous guys cook up in your laboratories,” the bar keeper said, all four limbs in dismay.
Solari slammed her fist in anger onto the device that sprawled a tinted screen obstructing the patrons from seeing inside. She made her way back to Aden, trying to hold back the frustration.
She accessed her second skin and typed in commands starting the PHI spectrum scan called Ambient Occlusion or AO. The PHI phenomenon was the optical illusion of perceiving a series of still images viewed in rapid succession to create a continuous motion. In this case, it was the nanites refreshing that allowed for the AO pass to be seen.
Solari’s irises, now a bright blue with pupils as white as her skin, revealed a scan of the room in the ambient occlusion pass. The walls, the bar, and all objects were milky white with transcription lines interlacing over them save for the nooks and corners that filled with a deep shadow where the objects in the room touched.
“I don’t get it. Eradicates could never hide like this before. And why this bar in the Upper Cruft?” Aden asked.
“When nPrints experience an erratum, they feel at home where they used to frequent. I’m betting she was an old patron,” Solari said.
In the AO, the dead couple on the floor shined a brilliant opaque white in Solari’s eyes, revealing they were humans from earth except for the cybernetic enhancements. Aden crouched next to them, also shining opaque white, yet he had no modifications and only a temporary second skin device strapped to his arm.
“I see you’ve never been Modded,” Solari said.
“Doing an AO pass on me? I’m pure human,” Aden said with a smile.
Solari shook her head in disappointment at his answer while examining the wear and tear on the Modded cyber arms that had once served pints of beers. “So, rookie, what’s your diagnosis?” Solari asked.
“Eager to keep that record?” Aden fired back.
Solari knew what he was getting at as she had been the decorated cadet at the academy. Moreover, while serving Axiom as a detainee of Eradicates she had caught forty-nine in row. This was an all-time record among the team, and Aden was right. She would not lose a search now.
“I’m thinking NCD. Clear self-obsession and delusional,” Aden continued.
“You think she imagined all this?”
“Yes, narcissistic errata are strange. She might only see herself at this point. Delusional,” Aden said.
He pulled back one of his dark sleeves that was too short for his thin arms, exposing a makeshift device affected to his arm resembling second skin. He typed in instructions. A set of electrodes printed in front of him. He hooked the up to a gauging device of some kind.
“Are you expecting to survey the dead?” Solari asked, skeptically.
“The soul of the human has been shown to—”
“Save it,” Solari interrupted. “Just be careful. It’s my ass if you hurt yourself. You’re only here on a trial run.”
Her eyes turned skyward to see Carter just upstairs. His body, different from Aden’s, strobed with pulsating rhythmic lines indicating the nPrint feed signal from Annulus Tower was strong.
“Got anything?” she called out to Carter.
“Yeah, come check it out!” Carter yelled down.
Solari swiped upward onto her temple to disengage the scan, returning her eyes to the wholesome light brown. She ascended the staircase to the upper balcony to see sheaths of mirrored artifacts on the surrounding floors and walls. Carter was in the bathroom, inspecting the broken pieces of mirror.
“Let’s see what happened,” Solari said.
She held up her forearm, using an interface that raised her second skin to scan the sink. She waited as an augmented version of the mirror reconstructed to reveal an indented handprint and a cube-shaped object held inside it.
“She had something in her hand when she hit the mirror,” Solari said.
“I’m not finding anything, but her erratum is everywhere. You think she’s still here?” Carter asked.
Solari looked out the door to the shards of mirror, noticing something strange. Walking closer, she saw in its reflection the bathroom but not herself. Standing in front of the mirror, she leveled her eyes, inspecting the mirrored surface closely to see all the imperfections. She removed the gun from her side holster.
“She only sees herself,” Aden interrupted, walking up behind her. �
��Follow the mirror surface, and you’ll find her. This particular erratum is specific to her, and she’s fragile. Go easy on her.”
“Fragile?” Solari asked.
Solari smashed the mirror. A scream shrieked from a room down the corridor as a ragged girl ran from one room to the other. Solari aimed her weapon high, approaching the long hallway as Carter followed her in similar suit.
“She’s here,” Carter said.
They reached the room to see a window smashed and a girl fall out as she manifested a mirrored slide that led down to the ground. Tumbling onto the ground, Miriam rose and smashed the window of a modified convertible hovercraft before jumping inside.
“She’s on the move! Get to the cruiser and follow,” Solari ordered.
“What about you—” Aden started.
Solari jumped out the window and slid down the shiny surface. She hit the ground in a tumble roll, planting her feet firm and drawing her gun in perfection. Up ahead, Miriam pulled physical wires from the dash and connected them to her neck. The vehicle started and raised off the ground as the convertible top opened.
Solari booked it, sprinting as fast as her nPrinted body would let her. She sensed a strength she never felt before. She jumped, latching onto the speeding vehicle as it trailed away from Aden and Carter.
Carter and Aden fell into the black and white cruiser. Wires extended from the side console and connected him to the wetwork of the car and freed the landing gear. The cruiser repulsed side to side, and the dashboard illuminated into a full-length console screen. They both watched Solari cling to the back of a vehicle ahead as it took off into the heavy dusk of night.
