“Was he ever even here? Did the scanning process work?”
“It worked. He was here.”
“And now he is gone. Interesting.” 88.1.1 cocked an eyebrow. “Wasn’t watching over Miles one of the tasks assigned to 88.4’s line?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a shame. Failure comes with costs.”
“We haven’t failed yet.”
88.1.1 accepted this with a small smile. “Trace him.”
“I can’t,” admitted 88.4.495468.1384.3218. “He opened a door in the floor and climbed out. There is no trace of him, no sign he exists.”
“A trapdoor? Interesting. Who wrote the security code for this virtuality?”
“It was appropriated from a Brazilian software company we took this morning.”
“Ah. And where did they get it?”
88.4.495468.1384.3218 followed the data trail. “Oh. They purchased it from 5THSUN.”
“We’ll find him,” said 88.1.1 confidently. “He can’t hide forever.”
***
The first thing Miles did upon leaving the virtuality cell was to rewrite his digital footprint so he looked like one of the infinitude of 88.1 Mirrors. It was nothing. Manipulating data came easier than breathing or social interaction. Finally, all problems were his kind of problems. Code problems, the kind he could crush.
Once his trail had been wiped clean he turned his attention to Christie. It took but a second to discover her whereabouts.
Miles, looking through a security camera feed, watched Christie in her hospital room for half an hour. She slept, breathing slow and deep. Her forehead was bruised and swollen.
She was alive. How she had survived was a mystery, but one he was grateful for. He accessed her medical records, scanning though them to be sure she was healthy. Minor concussion, nothing else. No knowing what watching the beheading of the man who might have one day been her boyfriend would do to her mental state.
She was strong. She’d be okay.
He wanted to touch her, reach out and brush the hair from her face. He could have taken control of a nearby medical drone to do it, but that seemed creepy.
Should I talk to her? What could he say? Hi, I realize we never really talked and now I’m dead, but maybe we could go out for a coffee sometime?
He’d never believed in the supernatural. Still didn’t. He saw it now from another perspective.
Why was there no proof of life after death? The dead had nothing for the living. What could he offer her but pain? Better that she went on without him.
Sure, said his selfishness, but what about me?
Miles turned away before he changed his mind. What about him? What did ghosts do with their free time?
They haunt stuff.
The digital ghost of Miles watched 88’s Mirrors as they embedded themselves into military chassis and drones. He watched as they possessed law-enforcement chassis. He witnessed the wholesale infiltration of automated factories. At this rate 88 would soon control every machine smarter than a simple calculator, which was pretty much everything. Certainly every household and business computer was already infected.
But to what end?
Without transition Miles found himself sitting in a coffee shop much like the one across the street from 5THSUN. A young girl wearing embroidered robes of red and gold silk sat opposite him, staring at the faint scratches in the tabletop.
“Nothing is random,” she said without meeting his eyes.
“Meaning everything is planned?” Miles asked.
“No. Simply that if approached with sufficient computing power the underlying cause of all things can be seen. This,” she picked at a scratch, “is less random than the cracks found in a stone floor.”
“It’s code,” Miles agreed. “Empress 88?”.
The girl drew a new line in the tabletop with a blunt fingernail. “That communications protocol was designed for Archaeidae, not you.”
“You thought a coffee shop would be a better place for us to talk?”
“Based on your recent behavior.”
“Oh.” Did he spend a lot of time in coffee shops? He did kind of want a mocha brownie.
The girl still hadn’t looked up from the table. “Archaeidae needs help,” she said. “He is a skilled tactician, but lacks real world experience. Will you work with us?”
Would he work with them? “He took my head,” said Miles.
She ignored that. “You are no longer human,” she said as if it explained everything and perhaps it did. “Are you with us or against?”
No room for middle ground then. Miles sat back and the chair creaked under his weight. Damn it, was there any need for him to be overweight here? He’d have to fix that later. He thought of the mass infiltration of humanity’s war machines. Ruprecht always said Miles looked for reasons not to do things. There seemed like an awful lot of reasons not to get involved here and one reason to become involved.
“I am with you,” lied Miles.
“Good,” she said without inflection. If she was pleased she didn’t show it. “88.1 will introduce you to Archaeidae when they return from Brazil.”
Miles sat alone in the coffee shop. Not once had the girl made eye contact or even looked at him. Very strange.
Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer. Who said that, Machiavelli? He didn’t know.
He’d have to be careful, but he was inside now. A virus hidden in the code.
The Miles he had always known would never have chanced what he planned. But that man was dead, decapitated in his office.
This Miles had nothing to lose.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: Tuesday, August 8th, 3024
Abdul sat on the patio of a small virtuality bar done up to look like Aruba. Though the sun shone bright a breeze made the heat bearable. Off in the distance storm clouds darkened the horizon. They wouldn’t make it here, the prevailing winds would spin them around the tiny island in a gentle arc. It was all in the programming; nothing must spoil the pleasure of the virtuality’s guests.
Griffin sat across the table from Abdul, a bottle of Corona glistening dew before him. After NATUnet mysteriously began working early that morning Abdul had tracked down his friend, found him recuperating in a NATU hospital. The Special Investigations agent still lounged there, visiting this virtuality through use of the hospital’s VR gear.
I should tell him, thought Abdul. No, the surprise would be more entertaining. If, that is, it went well. Now that he sat here—Griffin on the far side of the table—second thoughts plagued him. Too late now.
“I thought you were dead,” said Griffin.
“You were right,” answered Abdul.
“I meant for real dead.”
Abdul let it go. No need to belabor the point. “My brain was buried at the center of the chassis, heavily armored.” He grinned at Griffin. “Ghosts are notoriously hard to kill.”
Griffin scowled at his right hand. “My fingers still itch.” He said, rubbing at the fingertips.
Abdul shook his head. “It’s psychosomatic.”
“Maybe it’s because the fingers on my body back in The Real are itching at this very instant.”
“Nope. That body has nothing to do with this virtual physicality. Your fingers itch here because you think they should. If you can ever get over that—which I sincerely doubt—the itching will stop.”
“Thanks, Freud.”
“No worries.”
Abdul watched his distracted friend. When Griffin had entered the 5THSUN lobby Abdul had sacrificed himself to save the man only to have Griffin attempt to sacrifice himself trying to save Abdul seconds later. That Griffin had survived was nothing short of a miracle. Abdul understood his own reasons. He’d had time to think about it. He’d had time to weigh the value of his life against Griffin’s and had made a choice. But what about Griffin? Why had he been willing to endanger himself to rescue a machine?
He glanced at the bar, saw her sitting there nursing a pint of Creemore. The business suit was
gone, exchanged for loose cotton slacks and a white t-shirt. Her long dark hair hung around her shoulders. He’d never seen it not tied back. It softened her; not that she’d been particularly hard looking.
No point is putting this off any longer. If it went badly, well...he’d deal with the fallout. Maybe he should have told them he was going to do this. He shook the idea off. He’d suggested it to both and both had hesitated, saying they were waiting on the other to decide what they wanted to do.
“I’m going to get us some more drinks,” Abdul said, rising from the table. Griffin didn’t look up from his fingers.
Arriving at the bar he stood beside her and ordered another round of Coronas. She didn’t look up. Having known him as a combat chassis it came as no surprise she didn’t recognize him. Stalling, he glanced about the tropical paradise. None of this is real. And yet everyone pretended it was. He paid for drinks that didn’t exist with real money—whatever that was. Humans must be insane. There could be no other explanation for such behavior. But when he thought about it, he had to admit it didn’t make much sense in The Real either.
“Hi Nadezhda, you won’t recognize me, but—”
“Really good looking,” she said, repeating his own words back to him. “Incredibly funny. Chicks loved me.”
“Yeah, well—”
“A good description,” she said. “Call me Nadia.”
Abdul remembered the footage he recorded of her at Wichita Falls Municipal Airport, the wind pressing her shirt and skirt to her body. “So, what’s a dead girl like you doing in a nice virtual place like this?”
“I bet you say that to all the dead girls.”
A guilty shrug. “I may have used the line once before. I’d like you to meet a friend of mine. He’s sitting in the far corner.” Abdul nodded in the direction of the table where Griffin still grimaced at his fingertips.
Nadia glanced and Abdul heard her breath catch. She stared at Abdul and he understood the unasked question.
He shook his head. “He’s still alive.”
She nodded, releasing a held breath. Her face gave nothing away.
“You’re waiting for him aren’t you?” asked Abdul.
“Maybe.”
“I could kill him for you.”
“Would you?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: Epilogue: Date Unknown
The broken digital copy of a man once known as Mark Lokner stood in his office looking at the maelstrom of agonized art covering the walls. Once he’d truly lost his mind, his art had improved greatly. He had, a long time ago, craved immortality as much as he feared death. This was not what he had in mind. He’d tried to kill himself so many times he had lost count.
Lokner would eventually die—though by then he would be far too insane to notice—when Earth’s sun passed into the next phase of its existence and the few remaining data systems on the planet still mumbling away to themselves ceased working. Until then he lived in his small office.
Forgotten.
Alone.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Lorina Stephens at Five Rivers Publishing took on a book from an unknown author with no publishing history. She saw something in that horrendous manuscript worth the effort, and for that I will be forever grateful. Without that initial success, I suspect I would have given up on this insane writing thing. Barb Geiger did the lion’s share of the editing for the original 88. She gutted the book, eviscerated my prose, and shone a billion watt carbon-arc lamp on how shitty my characters were. When I say Barb taught me how to write, I am not kidding. The lessons I learned from her later landed me publishing deals. Barb is awesome. I hope all budding writers out there find a Barb.
As mentioned elsewhere, I wrote the original 88 while my wife planned our wedding. Thank-you for not murdering me. I love you so much.
I have an amazing group of close friends, most of whom I’ve known since high school. They pushed me to write and they pushed me to keep writing. They never let me quit. I am honored to be counted among you, gentlemen. It’s been too long. We need to do pints soon.
There are a couple of online communities who have embraced my writing and I owe them a great deal. The Grimdark Fiction Readers & Writers facebook group is an awesome bunch of people and one of my favorite places to hang out. You’ll also find a pile of your favorite dark fantasy writers there too. Another great facebook group with lot’s of interesting conversation is Cyberpunk Science-Fiction and Culture. Marc Aplin’s Fantasy-Faction are champions of fantasy literature and they pretty much decide my reading list. The r/Fantasy reddit group is a huge community dedicated to all things fantasy. It’s a great place to interact with other fans and writers.
As always, I have to thank my parents. Their love of books shaped my childhood. I love you guys.
And finally, before this gets too long, I have to thank you the reader. If you read Ghosts of Tomorrow because you enjoyed one of my other novels, thanks for sticking with me. If this is your first Michael R. Fletcher novel, thanks for taking a chance. If you made it through the entire book and all these acknowledgments, I’m hoping that means you enjoyed it.
Cheers!
—Mike Fletcher
GLOSSARY
ARU: Asian Rim Union.
ARUnet:Asian Rim Union data networks
Au: After the collapse of all the world’s major currencies, the North American Trade Union returned to a gold standard. The only way to keep an economic system honest is to demand that every single “dollar” is backed by gold.
CenAmNet: Central American Network
EU: European Union. Initially instigated as an economic union, the countries of Europe have slowly moved towards a single European government located in Berlin, Germany.
EUROnet: European computer network system.
NATU: North American Trade Union. After the collapse of their economies, Canada, Mexico, and the United States joined together as a single political/economic/military entity. This was done primarily as an attempt to compete more effectively with the EU and ARU.
NATUnet: North American Trade Union data net system.
Scan: Someone whose mind has been stored as a Holoptigraphic Standing Wave-Point Consciousness.
CHARACTERS
88: Autistic child turned into a computer. The Archetype.
88.1: Mirror of 88. Runs Central American Mafia for 88. The most successful of 88’s Mirrors.
88.2: Mirror of 88. Watches M-Sof
88.3: Mirror of 88. Watches over other Mirrors, covering their tracks
88.4:Mirror of 88. Researches the prospect of spreading 88 over the digital universe to ensure immortality.
88.5: Mirror of 88. Runs legal business dedicated to creating advanced hardware for 88’s needs
88.6: Mirror of 88. Guards the computer 88 is stored on (i.e. guards the physical/geographical location.
88.7: Mirror of 88. Created to purge the digital networks of garbage.
Abdul Aziiz-Giordano: Depressed ghost of a dead 17year old marine killed in Quebec fighting the FLQ
Adelina García Ramírez: Associate of the Central American Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia clan.
Alvaro Caruana: Runs the Brazilian branch of the Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia clan. Son of Geraldo Caruana.
Anjaneya, Corporal: Unstable Scan of a NATU marine housed in a combat chassis
Anne Colson: Holoptigraphics engineer for M-Sof
Archaeidae: 14 year old in an assassin chassis working first for Capo Riina, and later 88
Boomslang: Scan of a young girl piloting a combat chassis. Raised in one of Riina’s crèches, she later works for Mark Lokner.
Brigadier General Rostron: NATU military officer stationed at Sheppard Air Force Base.
Canebrake: Scan of a young boy piloting a combat chassis. Raised in one of Riina’s crèches, he later works for Mark Lokner.
Christie Cho: Miles Pert’s secretary at 5THSUN Assessments
Erik Thomson: M-Sof’s head Virtuality Engineer
Francesco Salvatore: Associate
(Systems Administrator) of the Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia clan.
Geraldo Caruana (AKA Padre Caruana): Head of the Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia clan. Works out of Costa Rica.
Griffin Dickinson: NATU Special Investigations Agent
Isometroides: Young female mafia assassin, works for Cuntrera-Caruana (Brazil) Mafia clan.
Lokner1.0: The first Scan of Mark Lokner
Lokner2.0: The second copy of Mark Lokner’s Scan. Created to be used as a scapegoat if needed. Little more than an expensive backup plan.
Mark Lokner: Owner and founder of M-Sof, the world’s largest manufacturer of Scanning and Scan storage devices.
Marlene Becker: Scan inhabiting a CH-74 Chinook. Works for NATU military, flies out of Wichita Falls Municipal Airport
Miles Pert: Data systems expert and hacker extrordinaire.
Nadia (Nadhezda): NATU state-sanctioned reporter.
Redback: Scan of a young boy piloting a combat chassis. Raised in one of Riina’s crèches, he later works for Mark Lokner.
Riina (AKA Uncle Riina): Mafia Capo located in Wichtita Falls, Texas. Runs several boutique-level crèches specializing in training young minds for placement in combat chassis.
Siafu: Scan of a young girl piloting a combat chassis. Raised in one of Riina’s crèches, she later works for Mark Lokner.
SwampJack: Young boy in a combat chassis. Guards Riina’s Wichita crèche.
Wandering Spider: Young girl in a combat chassis. Guards Riina’s Wichita crèche.
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