by Gentry Race
The room refreshed in nanites, building and printing in clean, dim lit architecture that seemed to follow convexing lines ahead of her. It was rows of her peers who had been selected to judge her, all lined in an array of chairs. It was her trial.
Green dots appeared in a three-dimensional box all around her. It was the first part of Pre-processing, calculating her potentiality of errors. The green dots extended to each other, crossing into Solari’s small figure and resolved into a solution.
The results were a list of known errata ranging from scratchers to narcissistic disorders. Solari recognized most of them, having detained them herself. The list stopped on a particular one. Solari did not know what to make of it as she read Anxiety.
“Solari Ducard, you have been found to have an acute form of anxiety. This anxiety has caused your inability to control your nanites resulting in you breaking up into tiny bits,” a voice said.
“I don’t understand. How is that so?”
“Miss Ducard, your erratum is special—one relating to the four fundamental forces of the Universe. In this case, the force that binds together the very quarks that hold you together.”
“Solari Ducard, do you grant yourself cleansing for the terrible acts you’ve committed?” another deep voice echoed beyond shadow.
“I… I am imperfect,” she pleaded.
Malick walked into the light. “Solari Ducard, you are sentenced by PSYOPS to confinement of the consciousness via Annulus code 1.618. We are placing a NIMBUS on you. This will interrupt the input/output carrier signal and reprint you in Axiom.”
“I accept,” Solari winced with a tear that streaked her face. “But tell me one thing.”
“Yes?”
“Who will run Annulus now that Chellis is dead?”
“Me,” Malick said as he stepped back into the shadows.
“And what do you plan do with it?”
There was a brief pause. “This is my son’s home. I have only the best intentions for Annulus.”
30
Aden tried to open his eyes only to feel them shut tight like a clam, sealed in dried sleep. He felt the crusted bits flake off as he wiped his eyes. He could hardly remember anything of what happened. His mind felt weary, but his soul was full of spirit.
“My son,” Malick said hesitantly.
He ran his hands through his perfectly groomed hair, rustling it up as he did when he was a younger boy. Malick was fond of those memories and held them in the center of his mind.
“Father? My eyes, I can’t see you,” Aden said.
Malick looked away at the medic bay and the tunnel that had performed the operation. “They are your new eyes, son. They have never seen light and will need time to adjust to the environment.”
“New eyes?”
Malick looked back at his boy, admiring his mother’s features he genetically carried. His chin was now perfect in every sense, the scars missing. Malick winced as the memory of his wife, Aden’s mother. He ran his fingers over his chin as if to feel the ghost-like memory.
“You are perfect now. An Annulusian.”
Aden was distraught at first, but a soothing thought overcame him. His soul, intact and ever burning brightly.
“What happened?” Aden asked.
“A girl—” Malick said.
“Solari?” Aden said, remembering her soft features.
Malick fell silent.
“I feel more human, father.”
Malick was glad Aden could not see his reaction. Chellis had disobeyed his wishes to allow Aden to die.
“Annulus chose to enter you against my wishes.”
Aden cracked his eyes to a squint, letting the light eek in little by little. “You wanted me to die?”
“You were in a comatose state. That was your fate, Aden. Scripture—”
“I don’t care what scripture says!” Aden fired off.
Malick contented. “To be a part of the collective is sin, Aden. The Conscious is meant to be stateless, not in a mainframe or a physical server.”
Aden gawked at his father, concluding his own interpretations—his own foundation of beliefs.
“That is a mistranslation! The Conscious is—”
Malick shot from his perch, grabbing the goggles and belongings.
“You live now as an Annulusian but remember where you came from. Don’t let it change you, son.”
Malick left the room. Aden tried to shake the argument from his mind but was distracted by his newfound abilities. He brushed the second skin over his forearm which was no longer a jimmy-rigged apparatus. It was part of him just as he was a part of Annulus.
He flicked the interface open as it hovered just above his arm. His home status showed an indicator blinking, alerting him that he would now have, like every Annulusain would have, access to the print.
The smell of stale plastic pierced Solari’s nostrils as she arrived in a small room, lying on a cot. Making sense of the events that had transpired, she knew it was her cell, but it felt strange. Her fingers traced the wall of what felt like rubber padding.
She felt groggy as she checked her second skin to see its blueish-green flower shaped glow had faded. She had lost all she had known. The thought compounded the feeling of being inadequate. She was an eradicate.
A thin strip of window allowed light to creep into the room and hit the sharp dusty cell features. A faint rim of light filled in the rest of the room, raising the question of where the light was coming from.
Solari sat up to see a blonde short-haired woman with thin, plain features holding a light cusped in her hand.
“We’re not solid,” the blonde woman said.
Solari looked closer as the woman whispered to a pulsing light as it moved around inside her palm.
“They turn off the lights because they know what I’m afraid of,” the blonde said, never looking at Solari. “Which makes me wonder why they put you in here with me?”
Solari was taken aback by the comment, feeling a little insecure by it. “I don’t know what you mean?”
The blonde, still clutching the light, stood dressed in a standard Axiom uniform. The light brought out a brilliant red from within her fingers as she cupped the light.
“Tell me, girl, if you’re not solid then what do you fear?” she asked menacingly. She unfolded her hands to reveal electricity arcing from one palm to the next.
Solari eyes widened and couldn’t believe what she was seeing. This woman must be crazy and had an erratum of some sort controlling a fundamental force of the universe—electricity.
Solari positioned herself back as the woman got closer. “Please stop. I don’t know—”
The blonde increased the arc, resulting in sharp flashes of light that illuminated the room intensely. Solari felt the heat from the arcs on her face, and she wanted to fight back, but the woman laughed.
Solari was confused. Was it a game? The strange woman lunged at her, and at that moment, Solari reacted with not a kick in the face but by breaking up into a thousand tiny bits, swirling around the room.
The woman suddenly stopped the arc, watching the bits of matter chaotically swirl under the door space.
“There it is,” the blonde said, smiling with accomplishment.
Solari reformed into the hallway just behind the door of her cell. The smell of warm cotton filled the halls along with the humidity from a laundry room nearby. She looked back to see the blonde now mad behind the window, yelling obscenities that couldn’t be heard.
She looked around to see a row of doors just like hers in long hallways that stretched in both directions. A soft voice came from behind the door directly in front of her. She was afraid to look, but the curiosity to see other errata was overwhelming.
She propped herself up and peeked awkwardly into the window just above her head to see a beautiful woman in front of the mirror, brushing her hair in an empty room.
In fact, the whole room was a mirror. The floor, the walls, and the ceiling. The woman faintly sang
as she stared at herself. Solari quickly recognized her. It was Miriam Madlem.
Solari saw in the reflection what looked like another person in the room in the corner, his skin strange in appearance. Patches of mirror seemed to have grown on him as he rocked back and forth erratically. Solari watched Miriam’s reflection get up as if she was a different person entirely.
In the mirror, the reflection walked over to the young boy, caring to his mirrored patches as if they were wounds. She stroked his head, but instead of him feeling soothed by the gesture, he began to shutter in pain. The reflection caused the mirrored patches to grow.
She manifests her erratum fully in delusional form, Solari thought. The real her is separate from the reflection in the mirror.
The boy’s body stuttered as he cried and was fully encased in the reflecting glass. Miriam kept brushing her hair and singing, taking no notice of this. In the mirror, Miriam’s reflection, now content with the boy’s fate, shot Solari a look that could only mean death if there ever such a thing.
Solari was horrified, afraid of what she had seen. Knowing there was a mirror and a door separating her calmed her some and allowed her to entertain her fascination. The reflection had a mean expression on her face now.
“You like what you see?” Miriam’s reflection said.
Solari could not believe what she was seeing. No comment came to mind as she watched the strange sights.
“You think you can take him from me?” Miriam’s reflection said, pointing back to the mirror-encased boy in the corner.
Miriam’s reflection began to beat against the mirrored glass that separated her from reality in a raging fit. Solari watched the blood ooze down and spatter as the woman hurt herself.
She ran to the corner of the room and grabbed what looked like a large strap swooping over a rafter above. It connected to columns that supported the vanity mirror in front. She climbed up and grinned a menacing smile, looping the strap around her neck while never looking away from Solari. Without another word, standing straight and confident high in the room, the reflection jumped to her death.
Solari’s eyes widened with shock as she watched. The true Miriam who sat in the room and brushed her hair stopped, her eyes following the movement of the hanging reflection of herself swinging in the mirror. Only then did Miriam turn her head, showing a beautiful yet distraught face.
Solari quickly ran down the hallway, trying to escape. This place was filled with terrible tragic individuals she never hoped to see. I’m not like them, she thought.
Just then, she felt her muscles freeze in a gripping sensation from inside. She had never felt a hold like this before as she caught the presence of young man holding his hand out.
“Who are you?” Solari asked curiously.
“I am Meson,” he said.
