Ghosts of Tomorrow

by Michael R. Fletcher

  There was one emotion it seemed he could vent. The one he most feared. Anger.

  Should he be grateful They left him that?

  CHAPTER TWELVE: Friday, August 3rd, 2046

  The elevator dumped a distracted Miles on the ground floor and in the 5THSUN lobby, a chapel-like hall of polished marble and brass. Still thinking about the phone call he’d finished with Neko, his overbearing older sister, he narrowly avoided walking into one of the ornate Greek pillars. His shoes squeaked on the polished marble floor.

  Miles slipped his filter mask into place and ducked out to the street.

  The air tasted thick with the stench of rotting food, melting plastic, and ozone. A smell Miles associated with the color green, though he couldn’t explain why. He glanced up and down the street. This part of the city looked pristine and clean but that smell had to be coming from somewhere. Crossing the street, dodging pedestrians and cyclists, he ignored the gaudy migraine of flashing casino lights and entered the coffee shop.

  Miles spotted Ruprecht Ingram, his closest friend since grade nine, and dropped into the seat across from him. Ruprecht looked lean and muscled in a way alien to most code-jockeys. Miles’ one and only demand when Lokner hired him had been that Ruprecht got a job too. Lokner hadn’t even blinked.

  The coffee shop was a small ground-level affair catering to local corporate employees. Close-ups of coffee beans and happy children decorated the walls; it was all feigned warmth and faked personality. The patrons were uniformly wan, well-dressed, and harried looking. This twenty-minute lunch break was their taste of freedom before returning to their micro-cubicles. Politeness was a luxury. Here, orders were snapped out like the crack of small arms fire: small-coffee-bagel-low-fat-cream-cheese. The smell of fresh-baked apple crumble wafted on a sluggish breeze stirred by the ceiling fans. Nothing was baked here, everything was shipped in each morning, and the scent was a chemical concoction designed to increase hunger and create a mood of loving comfort, warmth, and home.

  Miles glanced at the menu above the coffee dispensing counter. Big green letters on a trendy gray background. Prices ranged from four Au for a small Fair Trade Organic Coffee in a Rainforest Friendly Biodegradable Cup, to fifteen Au for a wedge of DHA/Omega 3 Enriched ‘Egg’ Salad Sandwich the size and flavor of a deck of playing cards.

  Why is the egg in quotes? Was it not real egg?

  “I thought we were having lunch,” Miles said.

  “We are.” Ruprecht’s gray eyes followed a young woman with a green apron as she collected empty coffee cups from a nearby table. Her black uniform pants stretched tighter than the coffee shop chain designers planned. Ruprecht was definitely an ass man whereas Miles was so boggled by women in general he couldn’t pick a favorite part.

  “This is a coffee shop. I can’t order a burger here.”

  Ruprecht glanced back to Miles. “The sandwiches are good.”

  Miles sighed with diminishing patience. Ruprecht had the palate of a garbage disposal. “A sandwich?” Miles said this like the word sounded only vaguely familiar. “You think they have poutine here?”

  “Poutine?”

  “You know, mixed fries. Disco fries. Fries with cheese curds and gravy.”

  “Christ-sakes Miles.”

  Who orders food at a coffee shop? The idea was outrageous. What did these people know about food? They were barely capable of brewing a drinkable cup of coffee.

  Miles ordered a sandwich and eyed it mistrustfully. “How old do you think this sandwich is?”

  “You’re worse than my nephew.”

  “I talked with Neko,” Miles said, changing the subject.

  “And?”

  “The usual. She ragged me about not having a girlfriend.”

  Ruprecht bobbed his head as if to say, I understand and relate to your pain. Miles didn’t understand how it was done, but got the message.

  “She says I’m afraid of relationships, or something. I’m not really clear. It’s bull.”

  “Miles, you’re a chicken-shit. You don’t even give girls a chance.”

  “I think we should call them women now.”

  “My point stands. You’re a coward.”

  “I am not afraid of women. I’ve had a plethora of girlfriends.”

  “Three girls you dated for less than two weeks apiece. Not quite a plethora. But I didn’t say you were afraid of women.”

  “It’s not a fear of failure thing either. I fail at stuff all the time. It’s second nature to me.”

  “I call bullshit. Sure you’ll fail at writing or hacking a bit of code, but you always come back armed with more information or crunching power and obliterate the problem. That’s how you are. You never fail at anything for more than a few days before your obsessive-repulsive side forces you to beat the problem to a fine paste. Still, that’s not what I’m talking about.”

  Miles examined Ruprecht, suspicious. “What then, oh wise and learned one?”

  “You’re afraid to succeed.”

  “What? Oh come on!”

  “No, I’m serious. If you meet a girl and wind up in a relationship it will change your cozy little cocoon life in ways that scare the crap out of you.”

  “I don’t—”

  “You might have to think of her first. You might not be able to always do what you want. Sometimes you might not be able to play virtuality games until four in the morning. She might want you to have dinner with her family.”

  “I only date girls whose parents have been murdered by ninjas.”

  Ruprecht continued as if Miles hadn’t spoken. “She might want to watch a movie or talk about her shift at work. Perhaps she’ll want to tell you about her day while you listen attentively, all the while struggling to remember you are supposed to pay attention and not offer up solutions to every minor problem she may have faced.”

  “Enough, I get your point.”

  “You might need to launder your sheets now and then.”

  “I have a laundry service.”

  “I mean because you’re having sex so often the sheets can’t go a week without cleaning.”

  Ruprecht nailed it. He’d seen what Neko meant and spelled it out for Moron Miles.

  Miles hated these moments. “I’m an idiot sometimes.”

  “You’re the dumbest genius I know.”

  “But I like my life. I like that I always come first. Pardon the pun. I like that I don’t have to worry about how someone else feels. Decisions are simple. My life is simple. I like simple, it’s...simple. Efficient. Easy.”

  “Lonely. Miles, I love you man, but you play virtuality games until four in the morning to distract yourself from how unbelievably lonely you are. Sure, simple is easy. Complex is obviously more difficult. But think about how much pleasure you get from crushing a really hard problem. It’s like a head-rush, right? It’s a high. Now think about how little pleasure you get from achieving something dead simple. Nothing, right? You don’t even notice you’ve achieved anything. That, Miles, is life. Take the easy road and at the end you will feel you have achieved nothing. Try the difficult shit and you’ll enjoy your successes.”

  “Which Sci-Fi movie did you get this pop philosophy from? Is this Star Wars?”

  “Go ahead and mock.”

  Miles glowered at his cooling coffee cup and papery-tasting sandwich. “Is this place licensed?”

  “You’ll never pass as twenty-one dressed like that.”

  “I’m not twenty-one so I can still dress like this for three more years. Next time I pick where we go for lunch.”

  “Make you a deal. Ask out the hot secretary you’re always whining about, and next time we’ll go wherever you want. My treat.”

  Miles shook his head. “I have a rule about dating co-workers.”

  “Stupid rule. Change it.”

  “What if it goes horribly wrong? I still have to see her every day.”

  “Nothing ventured, nothing gained, my friend.”

  Miles rolled his eyes. “Yeah that h
elps a lot.”

  But Ruprecht wasn’t finished. “You always think of reasons not to do things. You never stop and list the reasons you should do something. If all you ever look at is the reasons not to try, you will never attempt anything. You can roll your eyes, but if you risk nothing you gain nothing. It’s not a cliché, it’s an axiom. It’s fact. You risk nothing and you are lonely. Continue being safe and simple and you will remain lonely. Take a chance and that may change.”

  “Or maybe not.”

  “Yep. That’s why it’s called a risk.”

  After lunch they returned to 5THSUN and Miles, sitting in his office, contemplated whether dating was something he could crush like a computer problem.

  ***

  Mark Lokner paced around his office. He stopped at the window and stared out over the empty campus. Above the soccer field the M-Sof flag, white on powder blue, fluttered in the desultory breeze.

  “Boring flag. Boring colors,” Mark said. “I should have designed it myself.”

  At this distance he couldn’t tell if the trees swayed in that wind. They looked still. Except for the flag, nothing out there moved. No people. No traffic.

  A bird flew up to land on the goalpost.

  “Fine. Some stuff is moving.” Enough so it looked real. “But it isn’t real.” His voice sounded different here. Maybe the modeled acoustics in this simulated room weren’t perfect. “Ha!” he said, listening. He clapped his hands a few times, frowning at the odd reverberations. Definitely different. Unusual for Erik Thomson to fuck up such a detail, the man was obsessive about such things. “Not to worry, we’ll have a face-to-face to discuss this soon enough.” Mark laughed but stopped when it came out sounding more like a titter. That wasn’t him.

  Can’t these fucking idiots get anything right?

  Mark leaned his forehead against the window and was disappointed at its warmth. It should have been cool. He watched the empty soccer field. He used to see the staff roam the campus on their breaks. Every now and then someone would even put together a lunchtime soccer game. He didn’t watch, but had he wanted to, he could have. Nothing ever moved—

  The bird launched itself from the goalpost and disappeared into the trees.

  Right. Nothing except the fucking bird and the boring flag.

  Should he ask Miles to populate the campus with simulated people? No. Too strange.

  The office was quiet, lonely.

  “You need to stretch your legs is all. Go for a little walk.”

  Mark nodded agreement and headed for the office door. His patent leather shoes made no sound in the carpet and the dent of his footprints faded instantly. No trace of his passing existed. He wanted to somehow scuff the rug, leave some sign he’d been here, but shrugged aside the urge.

  If his office was empty and quiet, the hall was worse. It sounded different out here. Close. No room to breathe. Mark ground his teeth, ignored the tingling feeling at the back of his neck, and pushed himself as far as the staff kitchen. It was spotless. The coffee carafe, unstained by use and looking somehow glum, sat on the counter. The damn thing had always been filthy. Everything looked perfect and that was perfectly creepy.

  “Never thought I’d miss a dirty coffee maker,” Mark mused.

  He heard the release of a held breath and spun.

  Nothing.

  “Who’s there?”

  No answer.

  Someone watched. He felt their gaze on his back, tickling at his neck, and checked over his shoulder. Nothing.

  “Fuck this.” Mark turned and hurried back towards his office. The last few steps became a mad dash as something surged in pursuit. Entering his office he slammed the door closed behind him and spun to lean against it. Beyond, the hall filled with a presence he could only describe as weight. Something pressing. The sound of small children whispering, and then it was gone. He locked the door and backed away. The further he got from the door, the safer he felt. By the time he reached his desk, he was in control.

  “Interesting.” Somehow his desk had become a place of power. And why not? What were the rules of the old reality worth here?

  Had Miles programmed some little nastiness to inhabit his halls? Mark had wondered at the wisdom at hiring a damned kid, but Miles had been so far beyond the rest of his class that, if he’d waited, some other company would have snatched him up.

  “I wouldn’t have thought he had the balls.”

  He’s testing you.

  “Maybe, but he underestimates how strong I am here.” Mark bared clenched teeth. It felt good, feral. Powerful.

  I’ll deal with Miles later.

  “Stop talking to yourself.”

  Shush!

  Time to catch up with the news. Local first. “Highlight items,” he told the desk. “Rate by level of interconnectivity with M-Sof.” Later he’d expand until he’d reached a global level. Attention to detail was everything.

  Mark read the first headline: M-Sof Employees Die in Airline Disaster. He swallowed and skimmed through the story, picking out salient points. Team building retreat. M-Sof’s best and brightest. All dead.

  “Mother fucker!” This was what he had planned. The difference being they’d all have been scanned and would be now working here alongside him, helping to craft humanity’s future habitat.

  “Someone beat me to it,” he said in wonder.

  No, not possible. Was it?

  Were they killed to stop him from scanning them, or had someone else pulled off his brilliant plan? If the latter, he had reason for real fear. These people collectively knew more about him and his plans than he was ready for the public to learn. This could end him.

  “Christ, I hope they’re just dead.”

  Mark killed the news feed and paced his office for three hours, thinking. The scenery beyond the window and the presence in the hall were forgotten. Even the market manipulations he had planned were filed away for later. Was this an attack against M-Sof or himself? The loss of these people was a greater blow to him personally than to M-Sof at large. They were all engineers and staff working on key Scan related projects. Several of them were even aware of Lokner’s continued existence.

  But pacing and thinking didn’t get things done. He returned to his desk and gave it several leads to follow. If someone actively worked against him, it could only be one of a few groups. There was one other company in his business with the clout to pull something like this off. His Dallas contacts in the NATU Mafia could do this if they’d seen some advantage, but he couldn’t think what they would gain. Finally, there were his more distant contacts in the Central American mob. Not long ago they couldn’t have done this, but in the last two days their entire strategy had changed. Someone new backed their plays. Someone smart and bold.

  “Show me market activity for the last three hours,” he told his desk. “What have I missed?”

  The answer left him stunned. He’d missed nothing. Every move he had planned on making had been made, exactly on time.

  “Did I do that?” He checked the time stamp on the investments. No. He remembered pacing the office during that time. He glanced at the carpet but no sign of his repeated passing remained. He’d have to get Miles to fix that. Somehow.

  “So someone manipulated my stocks as I would have.”

  Exactly as you would have.

  Mark backed his chair from the desk, stood, and then sat again. The room was too quiet. Shouldn’t there be at least some sound, a background of tinnitus or room acoustics or something?

  “Am I losing my mind?”

  You’re talking to your—

  “Aside from that!”

  No. There must be something wrong with the computer he was stored on. Could he have lost time? Been reset somehow? No. Not possible. He remembered those hours and he hadn’t played the market.

  Got to talk to Miles.

  “I want to talk to Miles,” he told the desk. “I want to see his damned face. Give me full virtual. I want him in this office. If he’s got that shit turned
off at his end, override and make it happen. I own this. All this. Him, everything. I’m the damned boss!”

  Miles stood on the far side of his desk, blinking and looking stupid. The kid was huge, pale face still round with baby fat Mark thought he’d probably never lose.

  And those stupid shirts. All those damned slogans were meaningless to Mark. What the hell was a Regular Expression anyway?

  ***

  “You’re huge,” Mark said with obvious disgust. “Make him smaller. And sitting.”

  Miles sat staring up at his boss. A full virtual meeting? Lokner had never done that before, he always said it was a waste of time.

  “Miles, something is wrong. Seriously fucked up.”

  Did Lokner1.0 forget to use the simple code of calling him by his last name because he was freaking out about something, or was this Lokner2.0? Miles glanced at his desk to see who had initiated the virtuality, but of course he wasn’t at his desk any more. Or rather he was still there, but his desk was feeding this virtuality straight into Miles’ senses. An array of lasers were locked on his eyes, drawing this reality directly on his retinas. If he moved fast enough he caught glimpses of his own office, but not enough to learn anything useful.

  He examined Lokner’s desk but it told him nothing. Crap. I’d better stall. “What seems to be the problem, Sir?” Had Lokner cursed? Miles had only ever heard 2.0 swear before.

  “Something awful happened. A bunch of my best people died in a plane crash.”

  Miles, never one to follow the news, had no idea what he was talking about. “That’s terrible, what happened? Who was on the plane?”

  “What? That doesn’t matter. It’s what happened next. I took a couple of hours to think about the crash.”

  What the heck is Lokner on about? Unsure what else to do, Miles tried to placate his boss. “You know you can take time off if you need it.”

  “What?” Mark stared at him like he’d said the most unbelievably stupid thing possible. “Idiot. Listen to what I’m saying. I took a few hours to think. The company kept running. Without me.”