by Anna Mayle
If only he could have foreseen the need for research he might have saved a lot of time by setting them to work in his absence. Still, hacking could require a more careful touch at times. Maybe it was for the best.
A whir and flash alerted him that he’d been recorded, and Enoch glanced to each side to make sure the hood was still firmly in place. It was all expected.
The bright orange light flickering in the distance however was not.
He slowed the cyc to a stop and stared. Man’s Road was on fire, or at least the next settlement off from it was. He cut from the road and took an unbeaten trail to higher ground up the gradual incline in the nearby rock formations. The sun had only just begun to set, so he could see clearly down into the flatland below him. The settlement was a ghost town, devoid of movement outside of the flames. He narrowed his eyes to seek out bodies, assailant or assailed, but there was nothing.
Leaving his cyc hidden amongst the rocky outcropping, Enoch inched his way toward the fires. He could venture off of Man’s Road if he needed to, but it would require greater care, less speed, and he wouldn’t reach home before he ran out of his drug. Enoch wasn’t about to do that unless it was absolutely needed.
Crackling flame and creaking wood filled his ears, but it was the absent sound that really disturbed him. The lack of screams made the strange tableau just that bit more sinister. The settlement had been a decent size, and supposedly protected. They’d done a poor job of it.
To his left a building gave one last groan and fell in on itself. The force of its end sent a wash of sparks out to envelop everything around it, including Enoch. He didn’t move; the best way to root out prey was frightening it into motion. How many of the people here died because they ran?
Keeping his steps slow and deliberate, Enoch walked amongst the destruction. He wasn’t sure himself if he was searching for survivors or just an explanation. People died, Angel or human, usually not all at once, but the conclusion of life was inevitably death. The sadness associated with loss of life dulled after so many losses, one had to ultimately choose madness or logic. When the boundaries between those two choices blurred…well, “Here there be dragons.”
“What’s a dragon?” a tinny mechanical voice asked with obvious curiosity.
Enoch stopped. The scanned the area again. Finally a mechanical whir behind him drew his gaze to one of the security cams. It was rocking back and forth, looking for something. The light on the intercom mounted beneath the camera went green and that prefabricated voice spoke again.
“Is it a type of Angel?”
“You’re a strange Sentinel.” Enoch noted.
“No,” the voice disagreed. If it wasn’t for the monotone quality of canned voiced, Enoch imagined it might have been cheerful. “I’m a strange hacker.”
“Ah. No, dragons are not Angels. They were a Once World story.” He looked around the destruction blandly. “They breathed fire.”
“But this wasn’t a dragon, they were definitely Angels here.”
That caught Enoch’s attention. “You saw them?”
“Not in real time, but I rewound the feeds. They’re gone now. Killed the Sentinels, took spoils and some of the women, some children too. They said something about something eternal. There was lots of ambient noise by then. There are more women and kids hiding in a root cellar a quarter click north east from you. The door is hidden in sand.”
It would have taken a lot of Angels to take a settlement of this size. They could be working together for something, a council of multiple packs. Something eternal though. Maybe they’ve decided to unite completely under one alpha. Either option isn’t good for the rest of us. Hopefully it was just one unlucky settlement targeted by multiple hunting parties at one time. Even so, “Where are the bodies? The dead?”
The hacker was silent.
It was response enough. “They ate them,” Enoch guessed flatly.
The voice was oddly chipper when it responded, “Bones and all.”
The stranger was quiet. Jacobi couldn’t understand why, the sight had been…unpleasant, but Angels needed sustenance. Humans didn’t shy from eating animals because it looked distasteful, did they. “Don’t they usually eat them?”
“When they’re hungry,” he confirmed.
It made sense. Jacobi had read accounts of cannibalism before, of course, especially close to Nomans where food was scarce. Still, something nagged at him. “But an entire settlement…and there had to have been food there…so why?”
“I don’t make it a point to meddle in the affairs of Angels,” the stranger scoffed.
Jacobi stared at his screen, at the pale lower jaw of the man framed there in a backdrop of jumping, crackling flame. “But you are one.”
He straightened, tense, and a wide, supple mouth was revealed by the motion. Jacobi’s sight became locked at that point. He could almost feel the breath from between them, could easily imagine the warm press of them velvet soft against his. He’d never thought of such things before, instead of feeling alien to him though, the sensation was a comfortable one. Heat in a cold place, tingling…Do I desire him? Yes…Yes I think I might.
In his concentration on the cushion of that mouth, he had missed the scowl it was making, until the stranger began to growl at him. Then it was hard to ignore. “What?”
That enticing mouth worked for a moment, finding words and discarding them before they had a chance to be given sound. Finally though, the head lowered, hiding any hint of skin, and the stranger turned away.
“Where are you going?” Jacobi asked.
“Away,” the stranger answered simply.
“Aren’t you going to help the people in the cellar?”
Making his way up the rock slope around the burning settlement, the man tossed his last remark over one shoulder. “They’ll be fine. The Angels are gone.”
Then so was he.
Jacobi stared at the screen in consternation. Just like that? I didn’t even get his name!
One of his programs blinked and beeped at him.
A quick scan over the information brought his happiness back post haste. “I might not have your name. But based on your regular routes of travel, I have your destination.”
Chapter Three
Four Days Later
Water lapped at the shore behind him, he could hear the waves breaking on the sand. They rose, swelled and pressed, but he stood strong and unmoving. The salt spray misted against his skin, the cold ocean soaked into the fabric of his slacks. Enoch closed his eyes and took in the juxtaposition of warm sun and cool water.
He fell back into the shallows and let himself be gently swept up and deposited on the hot sand. It was peaceful, so utterly serene. There was no pain, no people, no anger, no hate or judgment. He often wondered if it wouldn’t be easier if they had all died in that last, devastating stretch of the war. Wondered if the scorched earth left over from human stupidity and greed might have offered up a new alternative to his divided and disrespectful race. But they hadn’t died. They’d only broken more and then gone on; long enough that they’d forgotten the sins of their fathers.
Instead, they repeated them.
Enoch shook off his disillusionment and sighed. As ever, peace did not last long. He had work to do and rumors to track down. Still, it had been a welcome respite, to see the sea as it had once been.
As if born of his thought, the sea hiccupped, the waves ceased for a moment and the sky darkened.
“Entrance requested. Code D0987654_B, Denadei Jobes.” A voice pierced the sky, riding on the rays of the sun.
Enoch closed his eyes. “Permission temporary,” he replied and reached out. Where only sky and surf had existed before, now his hand closed around polished brass and gave a sharp twist. The large double doors, carved with a scene of a place called Hell done by a sculptor whose name had long been forgotten, opened without a sound and he stepped from the sand onto polished wooden planks and plush decorative carpets in rich golden hues.
He sat down and rested his arms on the dark wooden frame of a lush and comfortable chair formed to the lines of his body. When he opened his eyes, Enoch was sitting behind a desk of a reddish wood, long since lost to the world at large. The room was circular and open. Bookshelves lined the walls interrupted at even intervals by huge floor to ceiling windows of colored glass lit by the bright sun behind them and baring the images of winged men both nude and in flowing robes. Above, the ceiling arched in a slightly pointed dome of clear glass which allowed the dark blue of a night sky to frame the moon shining through it.
“Nice office. A nice office used to come with a nicer secretary.”
In the chair opposite his desk and himself sat a beautiful man in a crisply pressed suit. The lines weren’t quite right, the suit overemphasized and the face too perfect. An avatar, likely programmed from ancient accounts of the Once World, a familiar avatar. “Denadei,” Enoch greeted blandly.
“I could program a bot for you, Full Cyber Sec, Real-Personality and all. High heels, long legs, a bit of candy to sit on your lap and complete the whole image you have going for yourself here.” Denadei was, as ever, very eager to please…and to gain leverage over those he dealt with. “I can even make her full function, as much or as little brain as you want, good tit-to-ass ratio. You have a build preference?”
Enoch responded with little feeling, “I am fine, thank you.”
“A mousy intellectual type, then?”
Obviously they would not be getting to the reason for this intrusion until Denadei was sufficiently put off of the current topic. “Why on Earth’s barren face would I go through the trouble of programming a person when I fully dislike company?”
“You like them younger? Any age is available.”
“Why are you here, Denadei?”
“The Moral Committee is breathing down the necks of the outer ring folks. Don’t know what shoved the sand up their asses, but they’ve gotten to two major players across the Walls and they pose a threat to my business dealings on the Network. I need upgraded Sec Procs, a tighter security writ, something legal-like to keep the sentries out of my affairs.”
“You know my terms.”
Denadei visibly deflated. “You never let me sweeten the deal.”
“I don’t have much of a taste for sweet things.” Enoch countered.
“Life is meant to be lived friend,” the man changed his tactic. “What with the rumors of the plague’s return to the north…”
“I don’t have much of a taste for rumors either.”
“The payment will be transferred, a third to each of the three accounts,” Denadei recited, he’d said these words many times before. “And merchant access will be given to you at South Wall 5.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“How about a nice boy? No cause for worry, your preference is safe with me.”
“Get out,” Enoch commanded and Denadei blinked out of being.
Being an Angel, Enoch had more to fear than some Wall’s Moral Committee. He wasn’t worried about preference. He had none. Occasionally he wrote up a quick bot to scratch an itch, but it was more sensation than flesh. People…people made his skin crawl. It wasn’t the fact that most were in reality full of the feel and smell of grime because their Net-selves were all that they cultivated, it was their minds. The twists and turns hidden behind friendly smiles…Human or Angel, their minds were filthy places. It must have been the plague that did it, because he’d never known someone without taint. The children, the very young ones, sometimes escaped the filth. Never for long though. It was devious, invasive and just so…human.
“What about a cat?”
Enoch looked up sharply and searched for the intruder to his peace. No one stood visible, just a voice.
“I’ve found all sorts of references to cats on the laps of wealthy men, usually villains. They never mention how their slacks are never covered in hair, but since many are or employ mad geniuses, one may assume a scientific explanation.”
“I am not a villain,” Enoch responded, his usual monotone broke a bit with ire and that annoyed him to no end. He pulled up a window, closed off outside Network access, and finally settled back to pull up the window he’d begun to open before Denadei’s visit.
He reached out to the northern Walls. The signal stayed strong right up until he hit a solid wall of security. Access beyond it was simple, he’d maintained the Network for longer than anyone in existence had been alive, and of course he’d left himself backdoors.
“Ooh! I never saw that way!”
Enoch tensed and blackened the window. “I thought I locked you out.”
“No, keep going,” the voice entreated. “I’ve been looking into the north too, but I couldn’t get into the civilian areas of the Walls.”
“Who are you?”
“Jacobi, who are you? The cyber pimp didn’t mention a name.”
“Denadei deals in anonymity.”
“Denadei doesn’t have your best interests at heart. He believes you’re a shut-in who will be easily manipulated by the physical when he finds your ‘type’. He has not, however, discovered that you are an Angel. Wastrel he has guessed, Angel, no.”
The stranger, Jacobi, sounded so proud of himself, as if he were reciting something he hadn’t gleaned from hacking a private conversation and possibly Denadei’s personal files.
Enoch folded his arms. “You’re a chatty hacker, and skilled. This is a private ward, granted it’s the public access point of a private ward, but closed to Network intrusion without access permission. You didn’t even trip the alarm.”
“Alarm?”
The entire conversation was surreal. Enoch had had enough. “I refuse to hold this conversation with a disembodied voice.”
Instantly a Network avatar stood before him. Enoch’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.
The stranger wore a white long sleeved shirt, and naked toes peeked out from under the cuffs of flowing white trousers. All that white, the pristine absence of color that had been long lost to the distortion and filth of the world. He was lithe and reedy, long of limb and pale of skin. The avatar appeared almost waifish, if a man could be called so. His body could have easily been pulled from samples of ancient paintings of biblical angels.
What gave Enoch pause though, was the stranger’s face. It shifted from one countenance to another in a rapid and fluid stream. Eyes of blue with a slight downward slant became sloe and almond shaped, wide and brown, green, hazel. His mouth slipped from thin and wide to small and full and all ranges in between. Nose was straight, hooked, turned up then down, petite to large and back again. Wrinkles were born and smoothed out, scars and burns dashed themselves against flawless skin only to be wiped away a moment later. Hair came in every color of the spectrum, length raising and falling like a demented carnival ride. Either Jacobi couldn’t choose a face, or he didn’t want someone to guess his identity based on one solid choice. Enoch’s own features bled in and out of the strangers’ and he shuddered.
“Keep going.” Jacobi insisted, as if his acquiescence to show himself was a deal kept and Enoch’s payment would be to give him what he wanted.
Instead of giving in to the hacker’s command, Enoch continued talking. “You hacked my system. Impressive.”
“I just barely managed. Impressed.” Jacobi admitted happily. “Are you streaming ASCII? It didn’t feel like ASCII.”
“And what does a computer code feel like?” Enoch’s voice was full of censure, but he was honestly curious.
“Hands tapping against your skin like a keyboard. I like it. What did you use?” He sat on the corner of Enoch’s desk and, in one fluid motion, slid to a stop at Enoch’s right.
“Morse code.” Enoch admitted. No use hiding it, the hacker had broken in without even recognizing it.
There was no light of recognition in the changing eyes. “Bring that window up again. I’ve been looking into the north since you mentioned it to the Keeper of Wall 3.”
Enoch stood a
nd glared firmly at the interloper. “Are you stalking me?”
“No,” his tone didn’t change from the happy cadence he’d used for the entire conversation. “Although I do fit the definition well, stalking implies sinister intent.”
“Color me relieved then.” Enoch’s voice dripped sarcasm.
Jacobi’s sounded completely sincere when he responded. “What color would that be?”
Enoch gave up any hint of subtlety and asked plainly, “What do you want?”
“To exist a moment in your life.”
“I see, not a stalker at all.”
“As I said.” The hacker nodded and glanced from Enoch to the blackened screen back and forth.
Since the strange, waifish man showed no sign of leaving, Enoch gave up and cleared the screen. After all, what did he care if a hacker watched him researching something he cared nothing about beyond vague curiosity?
“I accessed the Walls already,” Jacobi supplied helpfully. “The Governors and Ton are still able to access, but everyone else is locked out. I couldn’t bypass whatever they did to make it happen.”
Curiosity slipped a bit into concern. Neither can I, Enoch realized silently. They hadn’t locked the Network, they’d butchered the public system with viruses and crude data wipes to the programs that allowed people to port themselves in and experience the Network as a real place. He could fix it, in time, but…“Why would they do this?”
“Their Memos to each other reference plague and war.”
“Trying to keep panic from spreading to other Walls, maybe…I’ll try accessing their security feeds.” Enoch’s hands flew over screens and keys, inputting passcodes and slipping through gaps in their lacework of defenses. The cameras showed life inside of the Wall moving almost as usual, there was evidence of more unrest, the Sentinels were obviously keyed up, but that was to be expected, the people’s form of mental and physical escape had been ripped from them.
“No obvious sickness, no population decline.” Enoch noted. “I’m going to check the outside feeds.”
