by Dan O'Brien
Susan nodded, her cold features hiding the fear that crawled over her spine. Although Roth seemed nothing more than a powerful mogul, he was cruel to the core. The very depths of his soul more darkened than the underbelly of the city.
“Very well, sir. I will have that enacted immediately.”
Roth stood impassive.
Susan cleared her throat, rising and taking the folder in her hand once again. She moved toward Roth carefully, hand and contents extended. “There is another matter, sir. I’m not certain if it is worth mentioning. However, it came across the network last night around the same time as the OrionCorps response to the Cedars Tower incident in the Messiah district.”
Roth turned.
His face was a scowl.
“What kind of matter is it?”
She handed him the papers, which he accepted with a hard, quizzical stare. “Something that might prove to be connected to the Lurking project. It is too soon to verify, sir.”
He opened the contents, leafing through them quickly and then bending it so that he could read it more clearly. “Would you care to explain what it is that I am reading, Dr. Crowne?”
Stepping closer to Roth, she spoke. “As you are aware, the synaptic and neural patterns of every citizen of Orion are catalogued and monitored through my department on the 27th floor.”
Roth nodded, allowing Susan to reclaim the papers.
“And?”
She cleared her throat again nervously. “We were compiling neural responses to the upgrades, running diagnostic tests on seventy-five percent of the populace as you had requested.”
“Of course.”
“As always, we had a few citizens who waited until the last moment. Not necessarily out of spite, but perhaps lethargy or forgetfulness. However, mere minutes before the OrionCorps response to the Cedars Tower, there was an anomaly with one of the upgrades.”
Roth seemed annoyed by her explanation.
“An anomaly?”
“Alexander Marlowe, sir,” she replied.
She handed him the folder again, showing him the dossier on Marlowe. “Ex-military, OrionCorps for a few years. Works in the private sector now. He is the anomaly?” spoke Roth.
“Not him necessarily.”
Roth sighed impatiently.
“Please do get to the point, Dr. Crowne.”
She shuffled the papers. “Of course, he has been ignoring the upgrade pretty steadily, making a point to divert his visor from recognizing it. He was in pursuit of someone last night when the upgrade was overridden by the network and the mainframe forced him to download or else sever the connection.”
“So he received the upgrade at that time?”
She shook her head.
“Activate remote viewing system,” she said, looking past Roth. The window tinted, plunging the room into darkness; from the center of the room a light emerged. The panel was several meters wide on all sides, like a massive pulsating square. “An engineering technician was at his station when this series of events took place. As per Cerulean Dreams procedural code, we catalogued the interaction and stored it for future reference.”
Roth crossed his arms over his chest.
“Well, let’s see it then.”
“Activate visual/audio link.” The screen showed Marlowe from above as he entered the stairwell. His lips were moving, but there was no sound. “We seem to be having difficulty with the audio.”
Roth exhaled irritably.
“Anyways, we watch as he climbs the stairs. Cedars Tower had a visual link on each floor. We see him reach the 49th floor. Things get a little blurry here since we only have a few visual ports on the floor.”
They watch as Marlowe is manhandled by the ogre of man for a few moments before the tide is turned. “Shadows make it difficult to make any kind of identification of the attacker, or of Marlowe himself. Though, we followed him this far and can reasonably discern that it is indeed him.”
“What exactly should I be looking for here? Why is this such a matter of urgency?”
Susan touched her temple.
“Fast forward to 4918,” she commanded.
“4918?” echoed Roth.
“You will see, sir.” They watch Marlowe scout the door and then enter. There is no audio. Only shadows in the interior, hundreds, thousands of them. “Do you see it, sir?”
“Shadows, probably squatters,” he answered angrily.
She paced toward the screen, pointing with one of her perfectly manicured figures. “There is only one registered neural signature in that room. One, sir. Not ten, not a hundred, certainly not thousands as this video would lead us to believe.”
Roth moved around his desk and toward the screen. The shadows moved and contorted. “Right there, stop program,” he spoke, his hand pointing at a sliver of light resembling a humanoid form. “What in the name of Orion is that?”
Susan smiled: she had been right to bring it to his attention. “That, sir, is the damnedest thing I have ever seen. I had the network go over it again, stripping away layer mapping to reveal some semblance of identity.” She turned back to the screen. “This is what we made of it. We removed the colors from the imaging and transferred it to a black and white background, darker shading for thermal signatures.”
The image shifted.
The light diminished and there were only two shadowed forms. “You see here that the other shadows fall away. We can tell that this figure here is Marlowe, the blue hue of his brain patterns signifies a network connection, at least for now.”
Roth pointed at the other figure, the lithe, demure frame. “What about this one? There is no residual uplink coloration. What or who are we looking at?”
“Things get very strange, very quickly, sir. I think we are able to reestablish audio for a moment, but we lose the connection––permanently.”
“Permanently? That is impossible. No one in this city is ever unplugged from this building. Even when inactive, there is always an open signal.”
Susan smiled, her raptor’s smirk that of victory for she was in control of the knowledge. “Precisely, sir. That is what makes what happens here so important. We remove another layer and we can plainly see it is a woman. It is what she says that I think you will find most interesting.”
The visual uplink jostled a bit. The imaging crackled as they watched Marlowe interact with the mystery woman. Then, the voice echoed and the words that were spoken startled Roth more than he was willing to show. “…the Lurking,” was all that issued from the garbled feminine voice.
“What? She did not just say what I think she said?”
The uplink contorted. Blinking angrily, it then exploded into a shower of fiery rain and blackness, the signal lost. Susan touched her temple once more. “Visual complete. Resume OS procedures.”
The screen lifted and the windows cleared again, the tint dispersing. Roth leaned against his desk, his arms crossed over his chest. “What did I just witness?”
“The network could not explain what happened. We went over what Marlowe’s visor catalogued and processed right before the blackout.”
“And?” Roth asked exasperatedly.
“He received the upgrade as per Cerulean Dreams network policy. At the end of the download, he interacted with the woman who mentions the Lurking project. His melatonin and oxytocin levels skyrocket, and his neural activity is off the charts. He has full synapse connectivity before the connection is severed.”
“His mind imploded?”
Susan opened the folder once again, showing a sheet of data to the mute expression upon Roth’s face. “In a manner of speaking. More appropriately, his mind is working at one hundred percent or as near as a being can without system failure. There has always been fear that complete use of the brain would be more than the physical body could handle. However, Marlowe’s brain functions are of such a high resolution that it is impossible to say what happened.”
“Any theories?”
“If pressed, I would say that hi
s mind overrode the network, severing the connection completely on accident,” remarked Dr. Crowne, her confidence restored.
“Is reconnection possible?”
“Absolutely, the hardware for the uplink still exists. All that has happened is the companion software has been destroyed by the neural processes. We can remote connect, but how long that could take, or what resistance we are going to face, is difficult to predict.”
Roth shuffled through the papers, stopping at a printout of the stripped layer mapping of the interaction in 4918. “What about this woman? What do we know?”
“I have my suspicions. I think she might be what has gone missing from the project, what Methias said had escaped.”
Roth clicked his right hand against his chin as he looked at the picture. His blue eyes were intent upon the two figures. “Where are they now?”
“They?”
Roth threw the paper down, resuming his looming presence behind his desk. “I think it would be safe to assume that Marlowe and this woman are together. OrionCorps would have turned over an un-coded woman immediately. The fact that she was not found and there was an OrionCorps response seconds after this confirms that suspicion.”
Susan touched her temple, watching the stream of images and information that passed through her eye. “They activated the suicide protocol outside of Cedars Tower, disappearing into the adjacent building. They have not been recovered. They could be anywhere in the city.”
Roth linked his hands together, resting his chin upon them. “Who would have called OrionCorps in? Why would there have been such a prompt response?” mused Roth.
“Buchanan. Stratton answers to Buchanan. There is no way a mass solider deployment like that could have been authorized without Stratton. But why?”
Roth leaned back in his chair, linking his hands behind his head. “I think that is a question best answered by Buchanan, don’t you?”
Susan nodded, swallowing hard.
“Contact his office. I want him here immediately,” spoke Roth calmly.
Nodding again, Susan turned.
His voice stopped her. “Oh Susan,” he began.
She looked over her shoulder. “Yes, sir?”
“Have Armon look into this Marlowe situation immediately. I have a feeling that we will want to speak to Mr. Marlowe and his companion very soon.”
Susan bowed. “Of course, sir.”
She turned stiffly and exited the room, disappearing beyond the recess into the cold interior of the Cerulean Dreams building. Roth turned his chair and looked out upon Orion. The sun was a bulbous sliver on the horizon to the east. It was going to be an interesting day in the utopian metropolis.
VI
T
he out-of-commission tunnel was serene darkness except for dim running lights that traced a path along the exposed electrical work. They had stepped off the beaten path almost immediately, knowing that the dead body on the train and the carnage that had ensued would draw government attention soon enough.
Marlowe shook his head as he walked, muttering to himself. “Can’t be real….” He watched all around him. Sometimes faces appeared, horrifying renditions of things resembling humanity.
Often, he would look at the dark corners and see the scurrying forms that seemed to plague his every step. He felt like they were being followed every second they walked. There was something else, some slinking force that haunted their footsteps.
“It’s the Lurking, isn’t it?” he queried out loud.
Dana did not bother to stop, her long strides like miniature leaps. “You believe me now, do you?”
Marlowe craned his neck. The air moved, swirling about as if there were something twisting in the wind. He watched the darkness, bore through it with his penetrating stare and he swore he saw it.
“Something is here.”
He drew his firearm slowly, watching as the entity moved in the corner. The folds of its body were whipping like a flag in a gale: a bloated, blackened flag that was sentient. It catapulted itself forward, taking flight. It was a great raptor of shadow that descended from consciousness.
“Down,” he roared.
He pushed Dana, his body covering hers. The entity fluttered––ripples of its being undulated like waves upon a rocky shore. Marlowe fired; the discharge of his weapon smoky and the impact meaningless as the bullets passed through the creature.
Dana turned her head, pushing away from Marlowe.
“What the hell are you shooting at?” she cried.
Marlowe watched the creature recede.
It did not possess eyes. Ripples formed a dome that seemed to bob from side to side, as if watching Marlowe. He swallowed hard with his weapon tight in his hand. His gaze firm upon its departure back into the shadow.
“There was something crawling in the corner, some kind of weird thing that floated in the air.” He looked at the gaze of disbelief upon her face and shook his head. “I know what I saw. There was something there.”
Dana moved past him despite his silent, physical protests. “I don’t see anything.”
Marlowe re-holstered his weapon, clearing his throat.
“It’s gone now.”
She raised her eyebrows in mock surprise. “Of course it is. The thing that you saw that was attacking us, that I didn’t see, is gone. Vanished just like that.”
“Right,” he answered, looking farther ahead into the tunnel. She crossed her arms as if thinking. Marlowe threw his hands into the air in frustration. “I know what I saw. You said something was following us, something called the Lurking. Maybe that’s what this thing was.”
All the mirth in her mockery dissipated. She moved closer to him, her eyes very serious. “You saw the Lurking? The Lurking was here: is that what you are telling me?”
He spoke slowly for emphasis. “I saw something.”
“The Lurking,” she stated.
Marlowe shifted uncomfortably, watching as the undead wandered back into focus. Their gaze no longer seemed steeped in harmful intent. Instead, it shone of ridicule now.
They were mocking him.
“Since you know what it looks like, you tell me. It was a giant shadow that rippled in the air and seemed very intent at getting to us. You know anything else that fits the description? Because if you do that would go miles in explaining what’s going on here.”
It was her turn to fidget.
“I do not know what the Lurking looks like.”
Marlowe scoffed, his laughter soon rolling in the high ceilings of the empty rail path. “You don’t know what it looks like? You are telling me that I didn’t see anything, but you don’t even know what that thing looks like? That’s brilliant. That is amazingly transcendent, Dana. Thank you so much for that insight.”
He turned––his laughter dissipating.
“Are you coming?”
*
After an hour they emerged from the abandoned tunnel into a vertical shaft that crawled toward the surface. Marlowe grabbed the iron rungs of an industrial wall ladder and pulled himself up with a huff, taking each in order. Dana waited before following, her small body easily climbing the fifteen-meter shaft.
Marlowe stopped at its apex, feeling around above him for a handle. The shaft would lead them back onto the streets of Orion; back into the race against time for which they seemed so ill-equipped. He found the handle––the slime that surrounded it something of which Marlowe would rather not know the origin.
“Where are we going?” Dana’s voice seemed small from beneath Marlowe. He wrenched on the handle, the old metal giving way to his leverage. As it finally moved free, he let out a loud breath of air from the exertion.
Light shone from above; night was giving way to day. “We are going to get some answers, since I seem incapable of coaxing them from you,” he mumbled as he pulled himself through the manhole cover and onto the streets of Orion.
The sun had begun to make its presence known. The sky was filled with reaching fingers and tendrils of its g
rasp, the power of the day expunging the night. He sat on the street as he looked down at her dirt-marred face. She had been quiet since their exchange in the tunnel.
“Give me your hand,” he ordered.
She did so without question and he pulled her through. As she stood, he replaced the cover with a grunt. Orion was a different creature during the day. The bright signs of the night had dissolved. The effulgent lights that spoke of necessary things were dwarfed by the golden power of the sun.
Buildings seemed less majestic as the sun shone on them. Dirty on the outside, they were covered in ash and dust that could not and would not be witnessed at night. “Orion sleeps through the day. We will have to be careful,” warned Marlowe as he looked at the buildings. Their appearance seemed more like fossils rather than advanced works of art.
“Sleeps?”
Marlowe felt for his weapon.
He did not see the crawling creatures.
Despite their general creepy nature, he had become accustomed to them; their absence did not bode well for his paranoia. “Orion is a city of the night. I am rarely awake at this hour. The visors regulate our sleep, make sure we are rested, watching our vitals and sleep patterns in an effort to make things more harmonious,” he spoke as he walked out into the empty streets of Orion, the lack of humanity disquieting.
He looked back at her.
The sun’s reach bounced from building to building, bringing ever-present light. “I am beginning to suspect that our sleep has something to do with all of this. I haven’t been able to piece together what has happened. That is why we are going to see a friend. To get some answers.”
Her tight-lipped stare revealed a woman who wanted to say more. “Where is your friend?”
Marlowe checked the buildings visually. Without access to the network, he would have to depend on knowing the city by sight. He pointed at a marble statue. Its beauty was disfigured by blackened lines of soot, marred by the inattention of the populace.
