,
"Take a load off!" he slid a rolling chair to me. "Let me get us a drink! Hope you like basement whiskey." I chuckled. Good ole’ Cal.
He disappeared from view, appearing shortly with two glasses filled with a clear liquid. The smell wasn't pretty but it tasted good with a harsh burn. High alcohol content never bothered me in the slightest.
"Spurmandodge? What the hell is that supposed to be?" I blurted out after my first sip. I realized I sounded silly referencing his last name like that. He sat down in another creaky rolling chair and faced me. "I was trying to enter Spurgeon into the system and was playing with that technology that turns your eye twitching to text. That technology is so fucked with the newer systems. It decided Spurmandodge was close enough to Spurgeon. I figured I didn't really need a great last name, just something to mess with Persistence, you know?"
I continued on "And the address?" Now it was Cal's turn to chuckle. "Yup same problem. I thought maybe I was just crappy at it, but turns out it’s a busted technology."
I didn't even need to ask why he was registering a bogus last name and address. He probably had come up on the government's naughty list and needed some time to figure out his next move. With the right connections, it was pretty easy to re-register your name and address in the secure system before Persistence figured out that your identity and registered name were incorrect. Some had even made a hobby out of name jumping to stay under the radar. Persistence usually catches up pretty fast and they bust you anyways. Dumb way to die if you ask me.
"My identity was changed from a Shift dose given to me by Rimer." I didn't want to spend much time here, as jovial as I was attempting to be. I just needed some assistance and had to move. Fastest way from point A to point B is a straight line, and what I said was as straight a line as I could think of. Cal did that whistle again, as he did on the street.
"What is your identity now?" He asked.
"Rimer."
Silence. Cal stared at me. "Rimer? Like, inventor of Persistence Rimer?"
"Yup. I logged in, the pretty lady greeted me and called me Rimer. Oh, you should probably hear more of the story." I told him about the conspiracy video I found, the attempted assassinations, the dose of Shift, the video I saw with the man controlling a human, the forest commune and the graveyard. I basically told him everything I could think of.
"Cal, Rimer is trying to control all of us, and I was the trigger that set off the initial explosion. Soon we'll all be variations of Pounders. Brainless masses of flesh controlled by Rimer. I'm coming to you for some help. You've been through the government’s secret stashes, do you have any information on what Rimer is, her location, and how I might be able to stop her?"
Cal stared at me awhile then rolled his chair to a terminal. He spun around and began clacking away on the keyboard. After a few seconds, he spun back and said "I can help you, but it might cost you more than you're willing to bargain with." He didn't smile when he said this.
Blue-green light flickered across his face as he stared into the terminal. He appeared lost in thought as he read the scrolling text crawling upwards. Once it had scrolled completely off screen, he sat and stared blankly at the dying terminal, its light fading.
He spun on his chair and turned towards me. "It seems that a great many people are hunting you my friend," he said. "Your name is all over the feeds."
"Glad I'm off the streets then. I guess it would've only been a matter of time before one of the flybots happened to pass over and acquire me," I mused. "Hey, you got anything else to drink? My journey here has left me feeling a bit parched."
"Yea, there's some stuff in the fridge. Help yourself," he replied. I chose an unmarked bottle and gave it a sniff. Orange juice. Perfect.
"Hey Cal, would it be safe for me to jack in to your local network here?"
"Shouldn't be a problem. I've got a damn good firewall I put in place myself. I obfuscate any data leaving this place, so it looks like gibberish coming out in the Eastern Provinces. What do you need?"
"I wouldn't mind testing out my connection a bit more in a sane environment."
"Understandable, they were on you like white on rice pretty much the moment you jacked in, right?"
"Yea. I've not had the best go of it so far. Seems like I give off quite the powerful scent in Persistence. They knew exactly where I was."
"Yea, yea. If you are roving around with Rimer's ident then you probably will trigger several hundred flags wherever you go. She was a pretty big fish in the sea, if you know what I mean. I'm talkin’ Kraken-sized fish too," Cal said, not without reverence.
"A kraken is a damned squid, not a fish," I said, poking fun at him. "So, about that jack..." I trailed off, hinting quite obviously at what I wanted.
"Sure. Over there by my leather chair. I like to surf in comfort when I'm directly connected."
I plopped in and set my drink down on the little folding table next to the chair. It proudly displayed numerous coffee rings, apparently Cal liked to connect in the morning. I was more of an evening browser myself, but to each his own. I grabbed his jack and wiped off the connector. I realized that it wouldn't directly touch any organic material, but I was a stickler for hygiene. Plus, the thought of any of Cal's DNA being left on the jack before penetrating my body was sickening to me. The jack pulsed faint blue.
"Nice jack you got here, homemade?" I asked.
"Yea, I like to customize my gear," he replied. "A touch of light here and there to make everything more interesting."
"Sure, why not." Personally, I didn't get the hype of adding lights to your gear but to each his own. Cal had also built every bit of hardware in this room, so who was I to judge. I inserted it into my port and waited for the connection to take hold. It felt somewhat fuzzy, as though he hadn't shielded it properly.
"Cal, something's wrong with your jack," I said, with a slight tremble to my voice. "Something..."
"No, no, friend. Nothing's wrong," he said. He had put his drink down, only a single sip had been taken. He rolled his chair over towards me and steepled his hands. "Just a modification I've made. You see, by coming here, you're bringing the heat down on me. Hardcore heat man. You're fucking everything up. All my work to hide out here has just been ruined. I'll have to find a new place. A new identity. Build a new mainframe. Rework my security. Whatever they Shifted you into, Rimer you say, has negatively affected me personally."
"Wha..." my voice trailed off, losing control. I was starting to feel like I couldn't really control my body anymore. My voice box had simply stopped responding to my commands.
"Listen man, that feeling you had. That just shorted out my goddamn firewall. Something in your ident came spewing out and just attacked my fortress from the inside. Now I'm exposed, and they'll come here. That shit I was reading about you? Yea, you're nothing but a glorified GPS receiver. Equipped with a nasty virus." All joviality had left his voice. His face had hardened, and I could see real anger in his features.
"C..c.." I tried, but nothing. I was frozen.
"Just be quiet. You may or may not have realized this, hell, the Rimer-virus-thing inside you might be pulling your strings, just like those meatbags with the blue eyes shambling around the city. But you've taken advantage of my hospitality, broken my cover, and now I need to get out. Sorry man, but I gotta leave you here."
He reached behind me and grabbed an old Army-surplus style duffel bag, looking as though it were an overstuffed green sausage. To that he added a backpack that sounded as though it were full of gear, and tossed a minipad in there. Probably to do some mobile computing, though I don't think he was going off to write a novel.
"Listen man, if it's any consolation, this place is rigged to blow. When your neurons start firing again, and they should within ten minutes, I'd consider getting the
hell out of here. The timer is set to go off twenty-four minutes after I arm it. And please, don't come find me again. You've become dangerous to all that I've ever worked for. Christ, the years of planning...." he trailed off, looking down and shaking his head.
He looked back up at me, and sighed. Cal then tapped out a few commands on his terminal. The screen turned from a dark blue to black, with a little white hourglass turning over in the bottom corner. It was outlined with a heavy maroon, which although it should've been washed out by the black, its meaning came through quite clear. There were twenty minutes until the room, and probably several floors of this building, went up in pyrographic flames.
"Goodbye man. Sorry to leave you here like this, but nobody's watching out for my ass, and after all the shit I've done against SALDA and Persistence....let's just say my death would be slow and painful. Plus with all the shit I know about the organization...." he trailed off again.
Then he brightened. A flash of inspiration. Of hope.
"Hey, just thought of this. I can't help you, but go find Tony. Remember little Tony? With the limp? He can probably clean out your system for you. Best damn virus cleaner I've ever seen. Anyways, later man. Good luck.”
And with that, he turned and left, the door closing with a sigh and a click of finality that spoke leagues. Once more, it seems that I was confronted with yet another life or death situation. This time, I couldn't move. I couldn't even wiggle my damn fingers. Well, at least I could still focus my eyes and look around.
T-19 minutes and counting.
Chapter 12
Waiting truly was the worst part. Not the suffocating in fire, but waiting and knowing I'll be suffocating in mere minutes. Good ole Cal said about ten minutes and I could move again, giving me another ten (assuming I got the full functionality of my limbs back) to get out of here. So I sat there, contemplating if Cal was a huge asshole or if I was the huge asshole. On the one hand, we have me, a known criminal at this point, on the run from forces unknown with critical knowledge of SALDA and Rimer's true purpose. On the other hand, we have Cal who was seemingly just a simple hacker.
Fuck Cal. He's a prick. Why'd he leave me high and dry? My thoughts couldn't outdo my conscience, I conceded that I was, in fact, the big asshole. I checked a nearby terminal clock, it had been ten minutes and I still couldn't move a thing. Cal probably lied to me to give me a glimmer of hope. I would go up in flames, along with his fortress of information and this nightmare would be over. No overturned government, not for me today, apparently. Just fire and burning flesh.
My data jack tingled. I felt a presence cramming its way through the port into my head.
"Yo man, you need some help?" Julio's voice sounded like the crescendo of a symphony from inside my head. Like heavenly angels. Valkyries to whisk me away.
"Julio!" I exclaimed. "You have the best timing! How did you find me?" I paused for a split second. "Never mind, can you get me out of here?"
"Of course", he said casually. Did this guy ever get nervous? My body began to move, first clumsily as this was obviously his first attempt at using a human puppet over wireless. Another few minutes had passed. This place had about six or seven minutes before it was going to become my tomb. I moved out of the chair, out the entrance doorway, through the maze of apartments, out the alley way and back onto the street. I wasn't sure if I could feel my limbs but I didn't care. I was getting out and I was going to be alive. Julio was surprisingly adept at navigating me, before long we had a full run going on. He placed me across the street and turned me so I could watch.
Wisps of smoke began to creep out of the alley way from which I came. I squinted my eyes to focus on the smoke as a large fireball blasted upwards through the apartment complex, illuminating the darkening sky. Embers detached from the fireball and floated gracefully, playfully downward, snowing ash overhead.
It occurred to me that I didn't hear anything. Where was the boom, the explosion? In fact, was there any sound at all?
"Julio, I can't hear anything," I stupidly said aloud. I didn't get a response back. He might have left my body already. I didn't feel the exit at all but Julio was sly enough to probably slip out without me knowing. I had been, after all, nearly killed.
"Julio?" I asked again. No response. I looked around and heard both everything and nothing; the noise of silence. I instinctively put my finger in my ear as if to clean it out. My neurons must be firing, I was no longer paralyzed. However, the ear cleaning proved useless. I still couldn't hear a damned thing. The building in front of me was burning from within, flames licking the windows and poking their way outside, consuming more oxygen. I watched in silence as it began to crumble and fall.
I then realized that, whatever Cal had drugged me with, it obviously was more than I’d thought. I found it odd that he’d even procured such a substance, he was just a hacker. Julio was the drug guy, not Cal. As I watched the scene in front of me, the name 'Tony' rang through my head. Tony was an interesting fellow. That guy was either always around or impossible to find. He had a strange, mousey face and was constantly coughing or sneezing, as though he was always sick. That limp didn't help his appearance either. I felt sorry for the guy and actually respected him as he was incredibly intelligent. He would often get wrapped up in some weird stuff and have to fall off the grid for a while. Nothing mundane for him.
He was also a very good programmer and especially great with viruses, both creating and cleaning them. He kept me clean in the early days, but I hadn't even thought about him until Cal mentioned his name. Maybe I was given a virus that caused me to go deaf? Sounded plausible.
The building continued to burn and a few tenants ran out of the alleyway, looking back at their life going up in flames. One family, a mother and two kids, watched with blank faces as their home was torn from reality. The kids began to sob as they realized they would never have their toys again. The mother had a slight curl to her lip, like as if something she hated was burning, never to harm her again. A round blue-black ring around her eye confirmed my thoughts.
No emergency crews showed up, but a cleaning bot arrived on the scene and a large truck followed. I suppose there wasn't a point in putting the fire out, easier to just clean up the debris and start reconstruction tomorrow. Nobody took notice of me across the street and I figured I'd keep it that way. I slipped away and headed down the street towards a light rail station. My thoughts came to life as the smell of burning faded. Cal nearly killed me for his own safety. I must be really important, so important that taking me in, in public was a bad idea. That must be why the quiet assassinations were being attempted, as simply killing and dumping me would ensure no stirring of the pot. If nobody really sees it, that is good enough. Going to Cal's home showed me that I am a target, always being monitored. Cal, being a strong hacker, knew this before I showed up and had probably planned this self-destruction ruse. I'm sure he was annoyed that he had to pack up, but at least he dropped me the name of Tony to enable me to get further along. As long as that wasn’t a trap as well.
Still, it seemed quite lucky that Julio happened to jack into my brain and saved me in the nick of time.
The light rail station was deserted and a visual notifier said they were having rail issues, the next train would be by in 45 minutes as opposed to the usual 15 minutes. I plopped down on a station bench and looked around. A few lights burned and a clerkbot sat behind some glass, staring off into space. This part of the city seemed quiet compared to my neck of the woods. I relaxed a little but a tingle of emotion ran through my spine. I felt very alone in this endeavor. Almost completely alone.
Being unable to hear has a strange effect on your psyche. Your thoughts become loud, almost booming and offensive. It is as if the tiny voice in your head was given a megaphone. And the voice is shouting all the things you haven’t done yet. You ruined a man's life! You've ruined your own life! You haven't considered the implications of your discoveries! The ramblings continued, bouncing around my head,
making sure to touch as many emotional points as possible. I listened, however. I couldn't remember the last time I took a backseat and thought about my endeavors. The introspection started to feel good, like a small release, and I let it all rain down on me.
Some time passed and as expected, a light rail never showed. The indicator glowed with the estimated time delay, 27 minutes until arrival. It then shot up to 54 minutes. "Damnit" I said aloud, to nobody. Not even to myself.
I was still deaf. I began to wonder why Cal would combine a paralyzing drug with one that caused deafness. The tiny voice shouted something that wasn't criticism. Being deaf is probably an easy fix for a virus remover! Go see Tony immediately!
Was that it? That Cal wanted me to visit Tony? Perhaps he’d provided a reason, though a somewhat subtle reason, that was strong enough to visit him? I figured Tony could remove this virus, if it was a virus, from me if I asked nicely. The tiny voice began to mellow, only softly speaking criticisms instead of loudly berating me. I looked up at the indicator, 45 minutes still remained. I stared at it awhile to see if it would jump up. It ticked from 45 to 44. Then from 44 to 43.
Shift Page 9
