The Ghost and the Machine

by L B Garrison

  The floor heaved and dust plumed from the stairwell. Mandy stumbled back. The next step wasn’t there.

  Cisco reached for her. She grabbed his hand, but she was too heavy. He lurched toward the edge.

  Mandy fell back into empty space. She released her hold.

  “Let go,” She shouted.

  Cisco’s grip tightened on her hand and her momentum yanked him off balanced. He fell with her.

  Air whistled by as they tumbled into the dim chaos of raining debris. Mandy closed her eyes and pulled Cisco closer, digging her fingers into the folds of his uniform. He held her too.

  They were already half way down, falling a few feet away from the dark wall. Would she die or wake up when she hit bottom? If only he had let go. At least she hadn’t screamed like some Hollywood cliché. God, what a stupid thing to think about now.

  Something flickered within her mind. Scheming. Calculating. The world slowed. Slabs of broken architecture spun and floated gently down. Mandy understood what she had to do.

  The safe path to the bottom was impossibly complex and simple. She saw it.

  She held onto Cisco with both hands and kicked, pushing away from the wall, soaring towards the opposite side of the stairwell. Chunks of the building tumbled around them. Her perfect trajectory avoided them all. She drew her fist back and slammed it through the gray concrete. Her hand ripped a gash in the wall as they dropped, slowing their descent.

  Time resumed. The building shuddered.

  Mandy’s grip on the wall faltered. Just the tips of her fingers tore gouges in the concrete and kept them from falling. Chunks of debris struck the wall, pelting Mandy with fragments. The concrete fractured and fell away. Mandy had nothing to hold on to. They fell.

  Mandy’s back slammed against the jumbled wreckage. The impact sent a numbing shockwave through her spine. Cisco landed on top, crushing her against the floor.

  They laid there for a moment as the shock of the fall ebbed. Dust and Cisco’s cardamom aroma mixed. Around them lay stairs in a jumbled stack, like broken dominos. The whole building quivered.

  Cisco propped himself up on his elbows. His eyes were unfocused. “Mandy, are you all right?”

  She blinked and groaned. “You’re on my spleen—among other things.”

  Above, in the swirling dust, shadows tumbled.

  Mandy grabbed Cisco’s shoulder. “Move!”

  She rolled and pulled him into a gap between the flights of stairs.

  Tons of rubble rained down. Darkness and choking dust smothered the world.

  CHAPTER TEN

  T

  he static crackle of rain filled the silence of the ruined lobby. Mandy entwined her fingers in the thick fabric and leaned back, using her weight to pull on the stubborn tapestry. Her breath turn to mist in the frigid air.

  The metal rings holding the cloth stretched into ovals. She reached higher for a better hold. Sweat and Cisco’s blood made her hands sticky. Her stomach tensed at the sweet, copper smell. Doubt piled on, churning her stomach all the more. How could she do this on her own?

  A tremor rumbled against her feet and shifted the debris around her. Mandy held her breath, focusing on the dark gap in the staircase rubble. Building crumbs bounced down the debris-choked stairway. Dust drifted from the broken ceiling. The rumble faded into the patter of rain.

  Mandy pulled harder and a ring snapped. Then another. The cloth fell. She gathered as much as she could into a heavy ball. The tapestry was too large to manage all at once, so she dragged it to the stairwell, tripping on it now and again. Beads of clammy sweat speckled her forehead.

  Thunder rumbled, shaking the building.

  Mandy looked up through the debris jamming the stairwell. “Alex—”

  Pain ripped through her side, stealing her voice. She leaned her back against the crumbling Orion Union logo, closed her eyes and concentrated on stifling the cough tickling the back of her throat. There was no popping when she breathed, which meant no broken ribs, a fun fact she had learned from childhood trauma, but she couldn’t yell loud enough to be heard. Bailey and Alex couldn’t help anyways. Mandy just wanted some assurance they were still alive.

  She let the balled material fall to the cracked floor. Grabbing the end, she crawled into the darkness, scraping her knees and occasionally bumping her head. Large chunks of debris had wedged together to form an unstable cavern at the base of the stairwell. The void in the twisted wreckage narrowed the further she went. Her body block most of the feeble light from the entrance and soon she had to feel her way in the smothering darkness. Small bits of debris fell from above.

  Mandy had given up dragging Cisco out. He still lay in the same spot. Pulverized stone permeated the air, sticking to her sweaty skin.

  If Alex or even Landin had been here, Cisco would be in more capable hands, but he just had her. Mandy could only hope the others would find them and everything would be alright. Somehow. She wiped the tears and grime from her cheeks. The tears kept streaming, but that was okay as long as she kept moving forward.

  She touched his hair. Dried blood made it stiff. “Cisco. I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’m going to get you out. Okay?”

  He didn’t stir.

  She gathered the rumpled cloth beside him and slid her hand down to his chest. At least he was still breathing. His nanomechs might save him, but only if she could keep him from being crushed.

  Mandy rolled him over on his side and pushed her shoulder under his. He was so heavy, she kept sliding on the fabric as she tried to move him. The air grew muggy with her own breath. She could feel every ounce of the tons of debris above them. Another aftershock could bring it all down and bury them alive. The thought gave her the jitters. Every instinct screamed at her to scamper from the smothering darkness and leave Cisco behind. She stayed and pulled the cloth under him a little at a time.

  The tight space made it difficult, but she finally got the cloth half way under him. She crawled across, rolled him part way over and pulled the fabric until he laid more or less centered on it. Moving him around without knowing his injuries wasn’t ideal, but the danger of the shifting debris was an immediate risk. Fortunately, it only took a little maneuvering to line him up with the entrance.

  Mandy crawled back to the lobby.

  Rain dripped from gaps in the ceiling. Mandy took the tapestry and slung it over her shoulder. She pulled, leaning forward. The fabric drew taunt, digging into her skin.

  The cloth slipped along the floor, pulling Cisco with it an inch at a time. If only she had the super strength now, but it only came when danger threatened her and not reliably even then. The fabric bit into her shoulder. Her legs trembled. She tried changing it up, turning to face the stairs, wrapping the tapestry around her waist and pushing with her legs.

  Her strength renewed when Cisco’s head finally cleared the opening. She grit her teeth and heaved with everything she had left, until he lay well clear of the pile of debris in the stairwell and out of danger.

  Gasping and shaking, she staggered back to him and wrapped him up in the thick cloth as well as she could. She rolled up the end for a makeshift pillow. Keeping him warm was all she could do. She rubbed her hands together. This place was so cold.

  Mandy dropped beside Cisco as weariness took hold and hope faded. Broken marble blocked the main entrance, the stairs were nonexistent and part of the upper floor had buried the windows—no chance of breaking through there. Rain and streams of water poured from the broken roof.

  Maybe, somewhere in the jumbled rubble lay the way out, but so did dead ends and the danger of collapse. If no one came for them soon, she would have to try. Cisco’s breathing seemed easier now. Mandy closed her eyes, just for a moment.

  The rain echoed.

  Mandy jerked upright. Had she dozed off? Something had changed. She touched Cisco’s cheek. He had some swelling along his jawline. His breathing seemed easier.

  Gray light leaked from above with the rain, leaving the room full of shado
ws. The puddles didn’t look any bigger.

  “Bailey?”

  The darkness shifted in the sharp angles of the wreckage. Mandy held her breath. Not Bailey.

  A woman’s voice came from behind. “You’re not so scary, are you?”

  Mandy lurched to her feet.

  In her peripheral vision, a shadow moved with the grace of a panther. Mandy spun around and nearly bumped noses with the girl from the window. She stumbled and landed on her butt with a squeak, gritting her teeth as a jolt of pain took her breath again.

  The girl’s honey-blonde hair floated behind her as she prowled around Mandy. Her black and green uniform shimmered in the dim light and her movements jerked, like a lagging video.

  A prickly chill crawled down Mandy’s back. She scooted around to keep her eyes on the girl and bumped against Cisco’s arm. This was completely off the weird-o-meter scale. Her heart pounded in her ears as she edged away from the flickering ghost.

  The girl stopped. “You shouldn’t be here. I’m putting you back in the dark where you belong.”

  The lobby blinked and vanished. Cold winds formed little dust devils of ash and the heat of fires bathed ruined streets in an orange light. Splintered buildings stood against the gray sky like broken bones.

  This time, Mandy didn’t look at the charred bodies. “I’ve been here. You did this, didn’t you?”

  Flickering fires rendered the girl’s face in stark orange and black. The sobs of a child echoed through the ruins. She turned away from Mandy. “Yes, I did this. Let’s get on with it.”

  The ruins fell away. Golden cityscapes, storms of burning diamonds and cold deserts that never saw the sun whirled through Mandy’s mind. Strangers’ faces that seem familiar joined together and the flurry of sensations blurred into gibberish. The tang of strawberries and Landin’s smile faded until she didn’t know what she had forgotten.

  Attack. Was she under attack or had things always been this way? She dissolved in a flood of memories she never had.

  Children sang. Swirls of color wrapped in giggles nudged her mind. Mandy grabbed hold of the bubbly warmth and held on, ignoring the rest. This was real and hers. Her eighth birthday party. In just three years, Daddy would walk away forever.

  The smell of chocolate cake slammed into Mandy. Warm sunlight spilled across her face. The bright kitchen was smaller than she remembered, with its woodwork painted in white enamel and marbled green linoleum covering the floors and countertops. She had been thirteen the last time she stood here. How the hell had she gotten here?

  Children screamed.

  Mandy whirled toward the doorway. A flock of girls poured into the small kitchen, arms waving and hair flying. Mandy’s breath stopped. Sporting a ponytail and braces, her eight-year-old self streamed in with the others. Little Sage followed just one step behind, as always.

  A portly bearded man in plaid lumbered after them. He growled, arms in the air like claws as he chased them around the table.

  Mandy’s heart bumped in her chest. “Oh God. Daddy.”

  She reached out to touch his shoulder, just to feel him one more time. Her trembling hand passed through him with no resistance.

  Mom walked in behind Daddy. “George. George! You’re worse than the kids.” These were the days when Mom still smiled.

  Mandy retreated out of the way, while the girls sang Happy Birthday and Mom cut the cake. With shallow breaths, she could only watch as a scene from ten years ago played out. How deep was this rabbit hole?

  A dark shape moved beside Mandy. She jumped back.

  The girl in black and green sat on the counter, eating birthday cake. She looked solid this time. “I remember this. I got the EZ Bake Oven instead of the pellet gun I wanted.”

  “You! You tried to kill me, somehow. And now you’re eating my cake!”

  The girl swallowed. “It’s dry. You’re not missing anything. And I don’t think ‘kill’ applies to you.”

  Mandy put her hands on her hips. “Kill doesn’t apply to me? The nerve.”

  The girl stabbed a bite of cake and examined it critically. “As I recall, I asked for a purple cake. Not chocolate. Does this look purple to you? And, oh, by the way, I’m not terribly thrilled to wake up with you in my head either.”

  “Me in your—who are you? Why did you bring me here?”

  “You brought us here. Daddy’s leaving shaped your relationships forever. Made you guarded. You gravitate to his memories.”

  “Like you and that burned-out city?”

  The girl’s jaw clenched. “This isn’t about me. You’re the issue.”

  “Not from where I’m standing.”

  The girl put the cake down, clacking the fork and plate together. “You’re not a whole person, but you aren’t a simple algorithm, like I was told. They lied, but that’s really to be expected. I tried to take you out, quick and clean, out of respect for who you represent. Apparently, I’m weaker than I thought or you’re more stubborn.”

  Mandy watched her younger self open the EZ Bake Oven. “What do you mean, not a whole person?”

  The girl hopped off the counter. “Mandy, in here, time passes slowly, so we have a few moments. You need to understand the truth.”

  The girls screamed again. Mandy flinched as they flooded into the room. The birthday party had looped and started over again. “Truth?”

  The girl took a deep breath. “Okay, here goes. The brain scan worked. Well, at least they were able to model your mind. Understandably, no one volunteered after that, so only your personality was used to create the first AIs. I was damaged in a battle, causing your personality to split from mine. You woke first, obviously. The portion of our shared neural net with my personality was more damaged. Imagine my surprise when I woke to find us cavorting with feral humans.”

  The girls sang Happy Birthday again.

  All the sensations that had assaulted her mind were like half-remembered dreams now, but a pattern held it all together. It wasn’t just personal memories, it was history too, a lot of history. “But, I’m still me.”

  “You’re in my body now, and the brain scan was a thousand years ago.”

  Mom served cake, while little Sage licked icing from her fingers.

  Mandy’s breath came in irregular huffs—when she remembered to breathe at all. A numbing chill crept across her body. “No. No, you’re lying. Trying to confuse me. Everyone would be . . . it can’t be real.”

  “You’re standing in the middle of your eighth birthday party.”

  Mandy stared into the girl’s peach-colored eyes. Her throat too dry for her to swallow. “I was just there. I was just . . . I need to wake up. That’s all.”

  “How many days has this dream gone on Mandy?’

  Mandy ran her fingers through her hair and pulled until it hurt, just to ground her in reality. The world went all fuzzy.

  The blonde looked up. “It’s the shock. You’re losing focus and we have a problem.”

  “Problem?” Mandy’s voice echoed in the ruined lobby. They were back on Demeter.

  The girl flickered and watched the ceiling. “Do you hear something?”

  Mandy followed the girl’s gaze skyward. “No—”

  In a blur, the girl seized Mandy by the collar and slammed her into a broken column on the far side of the room, driving the breath out of Mandy.

  A chill washed over her. The girl was in her head. Mandy tasted the light around them and changed its path. The air glowed, smearing the blue-gray hues of the lobby into pinks and purples. This was a stealth field, but how did she know that?

  The room darkened and the drizzle stopped as a shadow passed over the building.

  Mandy wheezed in the girl’s steel grip and stared into her eyes.

  The girl watched the passing darkness. “The stealth field will hide us as long as she doesn’t focus her scan. Atropos cannot know about you. My sanity cannot be questioned. They’ll use the mind phage and we’re both dead.”

  Dull sunlight returned and t
he rain fell again. Mandy pushed against the presence in her mind throwing the intruder out. The room’s colors slid back to gray.

  The girl’s eyes drifted from the ceiling to meet Mandy’s. “I need my body back.”

  Mandy didn’t remember anything between the hospital and waking in the crater. Did giving in to the girl mean oblivion, or waking from this nightmare? “It kind of sounds like you’re asking me to hand over my life. That seems forward, seeing as we just met.”

  The girls grip tightened. “The war is escalating. It will spread across the Confederacy until it consumes humanity. I might be the last hope.”

  Mandy watched Cisco’s slow breaths. “The disassembler mist. Can you stop it?”

  “My priority is to avoid capture. My technology cannot fall to the enemy. Strategically, they don’t matter.”

  What should she do? She didn’t know what her choices might mean for her or humanity as a whole, but she was sure of one thing. “I care what happens to these people. If I can help, I can’t leave them.”

  The girl pressed harder, pushing Mandy into the column. “One world to save ten thousand. It’s simple math.”

  Mandy tensed and clenched her fists, ready to fight, though she had no idea how. “You could be on the same side as the purple mist, for all I know. I won’t roll over, just because you say so.”

  The stone behind Mandy cracked under the pressure. Shards of it dropped and clunked on the floor.

  “My strength grows, while yours remains constant,” the girl said. “Your cooperation is not required. I’ll overpower you soon.”

  She vanished.

  Without the support, Mandy fell to her knees. The ruins around her wavered and changed. She gasped and sat up. Cisco lay at her feet. Behind her, the column was still intact. She hadn’t moved.

  She touched her shoulder. Her skin throbbed where the girl had held her. Had all that happened in her head?

  On the far side of the lobby, the golden letters of the Orion Union logo gleamed in the dull light.

  Mandy got up slowly, so she wouldn’t disturb Cisco. She stood straight. Breathing was so hard, as if all the air in the room had gone missing. Her pace quickened until she ran through the rubble, driven by the terror of what she would find.