by Damien Boyes
That was the moment I fell in love with her.
I know what I have to do.
Connie wouldn’t want revenge. She’d want me to forgive him.
Forgive him, and forgive myself.
She’s dead. Killing Amit Johari won’t bring her back.
Since the moment I woke up at Second Skyn, I’ve wanted to find the person who killed Connie, but now that I’ve found him, now that I’ve given up everything to get my vengeance, I don’t need it anymore.
The realization is so obvious and indisputable, I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out sooner. I laugh and the sound is alien in my throat as it reverberates over the carnage around us. Fin-in-Dora squints at the sound and I say, “Killing Amit won’t bring Connie back. We’re all here because we made decisions, we chipped away at ourselves little by little until there wasn’t much left. I can’t lose any more of myself. We need to leave, turn ourselves in.”
Fin-in-Dora’s face squirms like I’m speaking in tongues. “Are you fucking insane?” she says. “After everything I’ve done, after everything I’ve sacrificed, you want to walk away, live the rest of your life in a stock?”
“Okay,” I concede. “Maybe we run. Disappear. I only know I’m not going to kill him.”
Amit looks back and forth between us, searching our faces for a clue of what’s to come. He’s scared, he doesn’t want to die, but he’s resigned to it.
Fin-in-Dora watches me for a long moment, then shifts his gaze to Amit.
“Don’t—” I start and lunge forward, but before I get the rest of the words out Fin-in-Dora squeezes the trigger and Amit’s Cortex explodes out the back of his head.
StatUS-ID
[fdaa:9afe:17e6:a2ef::Gage/-//GIBSON]
SysDate
[07:42:14. Monday, January 20, 2059]
Fin-in-Dora sails over the handlebars, twists in the air and bounces off the high chainlink separating the road from the railway corridor. The fence catches her, slows her down enough she’s almost able to control the landing, tucks and rolls through the worst of it.
I pull up at the intersection as she hits the ground, rolls to a stop and comes up running. Toward me.
Her face is a stretched in pain but I can’t tell what she’s planning. Whoever’s in her head might have started out as me, but it became someone else long ago.
She pulls a gun from her jacket and raises it but doesn’t shoot, jukes instead up the nearby ramp leading to the bright gold pedestrian bridge spanning the channel of lowered railway lines. I’m surprised she’s moving at all after the fall she just took. She’s limping, but she isn’t going to give up.
I wouldn’t give up.
Maybe that’s my problem.
I kill the sirens, set the hopper to land, vault off before it settles, and chase her to the bridge. She can’t outrun me and knows it. She slows in the middle of the bridge but doesn’t turn around. Her chest is heaving.
“This isn’t how it ends,” she says. Her voice is taught, ragged. She’s got her hands in front of her, out of sight.
I slow to a walk, get my gun out. She’s cornered now. Desperate. Maybe she couldn’t shoot me before, but now I’m not so sure.
“You know I don’t want to hurt you,” I say, and stop. Far enough away I’ll have a chance to react if she spins on me with a weapon.
“You don’t give a shit about me,” she counters. “You just don’t want to hurt Dora’s body”
For a few moments back in Dora’s apartment we once again shared the same brain. The first Fin's memories rubbed off on me, but I wonder if some of me went back into Dora’s Cortex with him? I’m still nauseated by quaking remorse thinking about what I did when I was him, even if I can’t remember all the details, even though I wasn’t the one who did them.
“You’re right,” I say. “I’ve seen what you’ve become. You left a residue of nightmares in my head when you tried to force yourself into me. Are you so far gone, you can’t see your mind isn’t right?”
“No!” she says shaking her head violently. “I’m still me. I’ve just been cut off from myself for so long, I remembered what it feels like to be myself for those few moments when I was back in your head.” She rams her cupped right hand into her temple. “I know I’m not right, but I could be me again. I felt it.”
“Your own head didn’t want you. This has gone too far, you have to see that. You need to give yourself up.”
I take a step forward and she spins on me, a gun clutched in her small left hand, the muzzle thrust up under her chin. “Stay back. I don’t want to, but I’ll I take Dora with me.”
“Don’t hurt her,” I say, easing my gun down. “That’s not you.”
“You have no idea who I am,” she says, his chest heaving. “But you do know I’m not going to a stock.”
“There’s another way,” I offer.
Fin-in-Dora barks a laugh. “You want me to let her go,” she says and shakes her head. “Drop out of Dora’s Cortex and give her body back. I have nowhere to go. I’ll be wiped out as Dora’s mind returns—I’ll die.”
“Then die,” I say.
“I tried.” She shudders. “When I was first trapped in here, I wanted to let Dora’s Cortex erase me. I couldn’t. I can’t.”
I feel it too—the dread at the prospect of letting go, knowing there’s nothing there to catch me. In his place, could I choose death?
This isn’t the first time I’ve faced the high possibility I could die. If things had gone just a little different, it could have happened six or seven times during the war, if I’d been standing a metre to one side or the other, but I never dealt with the trauma of it. I medicated the feelings away, never took the time to make peace with the inevitability of death.
And with Connie, I refused to let myself accept her loss. I should have loved her, honoured her memory, let the grief be a reminder of who she had been. Instead, I channelled the pain and anger into a single-minded rampage of revenge. I drowned my feelings with Revv and a misdirected obsession. This was all supposed to be for Connie. She would hate what I’d become.
“Do you remember how this started?” I ask.
Fin-in-Dora snaps her eyes at me but doesn’t answer. Of course she knows. That’s all she knows.
“What do you think Connie would say, if she could see you now?” I say. “If she knew the things you’ve done in her name?”
Fin-in-Dora wobbles on her feet. I see her face flush as the feedback loop of hatred and misery trips for a second, long enough the guilt floods in.
Maybe reintegrating with me did leave a residue on the other Fin's thoughts, dragged him a little back toward who he was—me.
The gun slips out from under her chin and her hands drop to her side. “I only wanted back in my head,” she says, her voice soft.
“It’s not yours anymore. It’s mine now.”
Fin-in-Dora’s jaw clenches. Her shoulders slump and I see myself in her resignation. She knows what she has to do, but she’s is terrified by the prospect. Her eyes well and she squeezes her lips, takes a deep breath in and out of her nose.
“I’m sorry,” she finally says. “Tell her I’m sorry.” I nod and he nods back, sniffles. “Do better than I did,” she tells me then her eyes roll back into her head.
I watch myself die and almost call out to stop it, that we can find a way to save the person I could have been, but don’t. Even if there was a way, the few moments I had in his head were enough to prove to me this is best for both of us.
Dora’s skyn goes slack and I jump up and catch her as she collapses. I try not to trip over alien memories of my hands on her body a lifetime ago as I carry her limp form back to the hopper and lay her down on the strip of grass next to the street. The hopper’s blocking the intersection and traffic has started to back up. People are out of their cars, watching, capturing the scene with their tabs. Drones are starting to arrive.
While Dora’s mind returns, I gather up her bag from the wreckage of the bike and sling it
over my shoulder. Ankur’s key is somewhere inside and I still need to get it to him. Sirens are wailing somewhere in the distance. Standards will be here any minute.
I walk back over to Dora but stay back, overcome by an alien sense of guilt. I have other Fin’s memory of the last time he saw her, when he forced his way into her head. I don’t know how much of that she’ll recall, but I don’t want to scare her.
She groans, then gasps and jerks up, scrambles to her feet, steadies herself against the fence and swivels her head around, taking in the accident, the people watching. Her eyes skim over me without stopping, then creep slowly back.
“Fin—?” she says, her voice hesitant.
“It’s me. You’re safe.
Her nostrils flare in panic. “What’s going on?”
“You were mindjacked,” I offer, then stop, at a loss for what to say next.
“I— What?” she stammers. “How? By who? What did you do?”
Should I tell her? Tell her the truth about how the Finsbury Gage she’d known had hijacked her body to enact his revenge on Eka, then refused to give it up and tore through the lives of everyone he knew trying to get back into his head? She deserves it. Deserves to know the truth.
But if I do, if I confess to everything right now, to her and the cameras watching, that’ll be the end. Right here and now. Death can’t hide me from my past crimes. I did those things, even if it wasn’t me doing them. An amnesiac isn’t excused from crimes he committed just because he no longer remembers committing them.
I’m guilty. If I weren’t why would I feel it so strongly?
Even with Saabir representing me I’m sure I’ll get the stocks. Ankur will never get his key. The Eka pattern will be lost and Fate will be free to enslave the world.
“I’ll tell you, soon, but for now you’re free,” I say. “It’s over.”
“I don’t remember anything,” she says. “How long?”
“Months,” I say, gently.
Her mouth drops open. “My husband—” she blurts.
“He— He passed...” I say and her face craters. I take a step forward to comfort her, still fresh with the decision that we were going to run away together, and have to remind myself she isn’t that person. Never was that person.
She throws her palm up to keep me at bay and pulls her lips tight over her teeth. “You stay the hell away from me,” she says. “I may not know how I got here, but I remember you. I’ll never let you put your hands on me again.”
I’m confused for a moment then see the image of me slapping her, pummelling her, and I catch my breath in my throat. I can’t run from what I did, can’t hide from it anymore. I remember doing things, terrible things. And if they happened and I remember doing them, doesn’t that make me responsible?
I have to confess to Wiser, tell him everything I became, but not until after I bring Ankur the key to his mind.
The sirens are close now and I flick my head at the sound and mount the hopper with the yellow bag clutched under my arm.
“Remember my old partner, Detective Wiser?” I ask her as the turbines whine to life.
Doralai’s face is tense with fury as she says, “Where the hell are you going? You’re not just going to walk away from this. I want to know how I got here. I want to know what you did to me.”
Explaining everything will need hours. I need to get out of here now, before the Service arrives and makes the decision for me. “Wiser will be here any second,” I say. “You can trust him. I need to leave, but when he gets here, tell him I’ll be back to fill him in.”
“No,” she yells and takes a step forward. “You’re not leaving. Not lying your way out of this. Not this time. I trusted you, I thought you—“
I hurt her. Really hurt her. Used her. The remorse grips me by the stomach and tries to make me stay and beg her to forgive me, but I can’t. I tap the ignition and the turbines whirr to life.
“I’m not going to let you get away with this,” she screams as I pull the hopper away from the street. “I’m going to make you pay for what you—” The rest is drowned out as I race away, heading north to deliver the key to unlock a superintelligence.
StatUS-ID
[a646:d17e:8670:511f::Finsbury/D//GAGE]
SysDate
[19:33:21. Saturday, May 11, 2058]
Amit’s projected rithm winks out before his body hits the floor and the glowing sphere is replaced by a timer: 180 seconds, counting down.
I spin on Fin-in-Dora. “Why did you do that?” I yell, frustrated and sick at the sight of Amit’s blood pooling around his ruined head.
172.
“That’s why we came,” she answers with a disgusted sneer. “Or did you forget that bastard killed Connie?”
“Even still, she— She wouldn’t have wanted this.”
164.
“What’s done is done,” Fin-in-Dora answers, bends and drops her weapons in the ammo duffle. “We need to move, now.”
I can’t. My feet are rooted in to the floor, my eyes locked on Amit’s corpse. We may have won, got our revenge on the man who killed Connie, but at what price?
I went too far. I lost myself.
“No,” I say.
Fin-in-Dora glares at me. “What do you mean, ‘No?’”
“I mean this is over. There’s nothing left for me out there now.”
141.
Fin-in-Dora’s eyes skip around the room, from Amit to the heaps of dead skyns to the countdown. “You can’t stay,” she says and strides over to take my arm. “In two minutes, this place is going to implode.”
“Sounds about right,” I say, and sit myself down next to Amit’s body. “I’m tired.”
Fin-in-Dora’s face contorts in terror. “You can’t, that’s my head too. I want back in. I won’t let you kill yourself.”
I shrug and say, “No, you need to get Dora out of here. Get her to a safe distance then pull yourself out of her head.”
“Pull myself out to where?” she cries. “If you’re dead, where am I supposed to go?”
“Where we would have gone if it weren’t for the goddamned restoration: to be with Connie.” I never much believed in heaven or hell, but I’ve been wrong enough lately I can only hope my streak continues. Maybe I will see her again.
“I won’t,” Fin-in-Dora says, and leaps toward me, grabs me by the arms and heaves, trying to get me to my feet. I resist and pull out of her grasp and she stumbles backward.
103.
“Go,” I tell her. “You’re running out of time. You’ll barely make it as it is.”
Fin-in-Dora hefts of the duffle and backs away toward one of the doors, stepping over the bodies in her way. “You can’t abandon me,” she says, pleading. “You can’t leave me trapped in here.”
“You won’t be trapped,” I reassure him. “Get Dora safe and then let her go.”
“Come with me,” she says. “Please. Don’t leave me like this.”
I shake my head. I’m not moving and she—I—know it. I’m surprised she’s resisting so hard. I feel at complete peace, like there’s no other place I’d rather be, nothing else I want to do. Why doesn’t she feel the same?
72.
Fin-in-Dora’s got just over a minute to get to street level, she’s cutting it close. She looks at me one last time, as if willing me to get up and follow, and when I don’t, she backs through the door and sprints away, leaving me alone with a room full of corpses.
The air is thick with the scent of blood and ozone and the sun is thick on the horizon. Orange light bakes in through the massive windows like the world is on fire.
Part of me wants to get up and chase Fin-in-Dora down the stairs, but the instinct is fleeting. I’m prepared. I knew how this was going to end.
It should have ended with Connie, with the accident. I should have died with her then. Instead, I made a mess of my second chance, became someone else in a pathetic attempt to avoid dealing with my grief.
My breath catches in my throat and I
convulse through a spasm of sobs. The room blurs as tears spill out of my eyes and pent up sorrow pours out of me like a geyser, spewing in a wail that reverberates in the open room.
29.
I think back to the day I first saw Connie, striding through he tropical breeze with her curls trailing behind her. A warmth suffuses me, makes the sorrow easier to bear.
We had it good, for a while.
I’ll be back there with her, soon enough.
Everything we were, memories, the things I did. My life, all of it—it comes with me.
15.
My eyes fall closed and I picture Connie’s the morning of our wedding day before we knew it would to be our wedding day. She’s smiling, about to make a joke about eloping to Cuba, a joke that’ll prove not to be less than fourteen hours later.
I love you, Constance. I’m sorry.
I should have done better. Maybe one day I’ll get the—
StatUS-ID
[fdaa:9afe:17e6:a2ef::Gage/-//GIBSON]
SysDate
[10:01:26. Monday, January 20, 2059]
Xiao’s staging point is a rail yard two hundred klicks to the north of the city and flying low over snow-covered fields and forest is agonizing. The weather’s warmed up slightly in the past few days, but it’s still only in the single digits. The hopper’s an urban vehicle, meant for rapid transportation between two relatively local points, not cross-country winter flight over endless treetops. I found emergency winter gear in the seat compartment, but even with the Service parka and heavy gloves, my hands are numb.
I have to land the hopper three times to recharge the battery and slap feeling back into my fingers. Both times, I listen intently for the sound of pursuit while the capacitors refill, but no one comes. I’m going as fast as I can but I’m late for the meeting. When Ankur sent the message with their location, he also said they were leaving at 10:00AM. I might have missed them.
