Under the Flickering Light

by Russ Linton

A citizen’s Avatar glitched and disappeared under the angry swipe of one of the many Loadis’ canes. More of his countless clones lashed out at the crowd in unrestrained fury. More users were discovering Harlock’s fate.

  A wall of the clones shuffled lockstep in M@ti’s direction. She almost cried out for help. Then the advancing formation stopped, staring at the Alpha Centauri expedition video. Assaults rained behind them, but none of those surrounding her raised their canes.

  TrueSight confirmed her suspicions. The phalanx protecting her had a real purpose, they were shielding her. From behind the impromptu firewall she scanned the chaos. Stresses placed on the system by the quickly multiplying hunter couldn’t be ignored. The main feed jittered while trembling branches grasped, trying to contain the horde. Users vanished. Packets shed, drifting into the abyss below. It reminded her of the trees in the park in fall, only held upside down and shaken by titanic forces.

  She searched for a way to further compromise the struggling connection. Trash it all. This was magnitudes beyond hijacking a hov. Wrapped, encrypted, she didn’t stand a chance of interrupting the core pathways. She needed to get closer. From directly inside the thing, she could do some real damage.

  “Okay, dear, you’re coming out, now.”

  The old man’s voice wasn’t the one she expected to hear. “What happened to Knuckles?”

  “He agreed to let me help.”

  “Give me a minute.” She plucked a flailing tendril from the air and established her own connection to the main feed. “If I’m getting banned, I’m going out my way.”

  “This is more than a ban, my dear. What you’re trying to do, you can’t accomplish from here.”

  “Knock off your pet names, asshole. I can call you asshole, right?”

  “You will presently.”

  She heard a beeping within the acoustics of the cathedral and not the screaming void. The red light from the connection she grasped arced across her protective wall of entranced Loadis and their gaze slipped. Beyond, the whole cluster of goggled eyes fixed themselves on her.

  “We are aware of our function,” they said in unison, the choir of voices blending into one. The original Loadi seemed to shudder and he glared at her through the passing drift of stars before pulling down his mask and replacing his hat. He flicked his cane through the looping video and it shattered, golden packets raining down.

  From across a great gulf the beeping in the cathedral played on her eardrums even as Loadi’s footfalls resounded in her skull.

  “Sweep, inoculate, yeah I heard you the first time. You’re nothing more than a talking anti-virus.” M@ti couldn’t help but backpedal as the horde bore down on her. Her avatar clung to the emergency feed strand and she peeled away at the wrapper through TrueSight. She didn’t need to dig too deep.

  The cane raised.

  Another layer and she’d have it. An address, a point of origin for this main line into Collective HQ. The thought thrilled her more than she ever believed it would. If she couldn’t soar through space, she could at least launch into the restricted connections and wreak havoc.

  The swath of darkness careened toward her face. Scales of the serpent head glinted in perfect detail.

  Through the layers of security she’d shredded, she glimpsed the point of origin, the pit from where this artificial demon had spawned. Two addresses, one she’d know anywhere - the very same assigned to her own implant. The other? Loadi. He was his own source. There was no open door to the Collective here. It was sealed to him.

  On her feet in the real world, M@ti fell backward into a pew. She hoped whatever it was the cane did wouldn’t hurt. One final note sounded in the cathedral. Right as the silver emblem began to kiss the edge of her avatar’s face, the cathedral materialized.

  Once dim-light became a blazing inferno on her blasted eyes. She squinted but didn’t close them all the way. The old man from the lawn stood in front of her, a rectangular tablet in his hand.

  Knuckles was slung over his shoulder.

  M@ti stomped forward. “Put him down!”

  The cathedral doors burst open.

  “Warden,” said the old man. The dim lights died. “Run.”

  This time, she ran for real.

  11

  A hov shot past on the street outside the cathedral. The tree draped lane overlooked a small park with a furtive view of the city. M@ti had always enjoyed this part of her walk to work. Running scared, at night, branches huddled close overhead and leaves chattering, she couldn’t see the stars. She felt trapped.

  Spotlights swept across the cathedral’s stained glass windows as the warden and her drones searched the inner sanctuary. Her savior, the old man, had little trouble managing a full sprint with Knuckles over his shoulder. He’d hustled her to a side door at the back of the church without so much as a stumble in the dim corridors.

  Her own eyes had yet to readjust from being force-fed the Nexus. She’d needed somebody to guide her until they’d burst outside. When she saw the familiar lane, she knew exactly where they were and took off.

  Where didn’t matter. She only knew she needed distance between her and the Warden.

  She leapt off the curb. Out of habit she only partly registered an oncoming hov. It would stop, like always. She ignored it and risked a glance at the sky where the tree branches had yet to knit together.

  Stars. She could see them. Everything was going to be fine.

  Halfway across the lane and the hov hadn’t slowed. Her sprint faltered. Surely it would stop? Programming didn’t allow it to mow her down. An irrational urge to open her interface and check the code held her in place right before a powerful blow lifted her off her feet.

  M@ti, Knuckles, and the old man went sprawling across the opposite sidewalk. Skinned elbows and knees made her wince, but she didn’t complain, just stared after the hov.

  “It didn’t stop.”

  Knuckles groaned. The old man was already on his feet. “Get up. We have to run.”

  “The hov. It would’ve killed me.”

  “They’ll do worse if you don’t move.” He indicated the cathedral where the swarm of spotlights had focused by the windows nearest the rear door.

  M@ti scrambled over to Knuckles. He’d been scuffed by the fall, but looked like he was coming around. She checked the open doorway then the old man and made a choice.

  “Get him out of here. He didn’t have anything to do with this. I fucked up.”

  The old man was already pulling Knuckles to his feet. “Too late for noble self-sacrifice. He was there, and they know it.” He leaned Knuckles’ groggy form against his shoulder. “They know everywhere he’s been, everything he’s done, every plan he might make for the future. It’s all recorded, forecast. He’s their target too. Come on.”

  M@ti hobbled after them, working the stiffness out of her banged up leg. She’d never meant to get Knuckles caught up in this. What had he ever done but be a friend? What had she ever done but treat him as a means to an end? All so she could break the rules and see places she’d never been meant to see.

  The old man descended the steps into the park two at a time. Helpless, Knuckles feet skimmed the concrete making a floating purchase. The sight was too much.

  “If I explain, maybe they’ll leave him alone,” she hissed between jarred breaths. “The band. The Nexus. That’s his life.”

  The old man stopped at the bottom of the stairs. He was eyeing the open field with suspicion, barely considering what she’d just said.

  “He doesn’t have much of a band left,” he muttered.

  The old man took off at a run through the grass, leaving the trail behind for the cover of the trees. He nimbly navigated the tricky slope despite the full grown rag doll on his shoulder. With a lifetime of dance lessons perhaps, she could understand the old man’s grace. But his stamina, the strength, those defied reason.

  They plunged deeper into the trees until they skirted the edge of an open field. Lights from specheads hovered like fireflies,
bounding in erratic motions. She’d seen this smaller park busier, though rarely spent time here at night. She wanted to cry out to her fellow citizens for help. A sudden, primal urge for a community she’d never found.

  Nobody would care. And if they did hear her? If they logged off long enough to see her? The Collective would see her too.

  M@ti couldn’t keep up with Twinkle Toes. He ran fast enough she was certain Knuckles feet had been hoisted off the ground again. He couldn’t be human. A new tourist suit for the AI? Was this some kind of sick test? Another experiment like her entire life had been?

  Searchlights flickered in the trees behind them. Over the rush of traffic she heard the whir of rotary blades. Drones. They’d left the church and begun their search of the area. It wouldn’t be long before they were caught.

  The old man darted into a thicket against a retaining wall just as a blinding spotlight swept the intersection at the top of the steps leading to street level from the sunken park.

  “Aerobic heart rate exceeded for uncredited time. Previous medical appointment considered. Full medical evaluation is necessary. We are notifying emergency services of your location.”

  The pleasant, soothing voice caused her heart rate to spike even higher. She could put the LifeMinder in the background all she wanted but she couldn’t block it. All she could do was run faster.

  M@ti forced her way through spiny boughs to where the old man hid. Dense and taller than the retaining wall, the branches could shield them, but not for long.

  “Can’t hide here,” M@ti gasped through heavy breaths.

  “I know,” the old man replied. Knuckles seemed conscious enough to be propped against the wall. “Their sensors will pick us out soon enough,” he said, casting a judgmental stare at the sky then searching the park. Past the commotion, a group of specheads bobbed in the dark like fireflies.

  “They already have,” she panted. Luckily she didn’t have to try to say more. She had his attention as she tapped her skull.

  The old man’s face scrunched. “Stay close to me and that won’t be a problem.”

  “LifeMinder already tagged me.”

  His eyes became moons in the pale dimness. Stuffing his hand in a jacket pocket he produced a small tablet no bigger than his palm. He scanned the screen, swiping his way through a menu.

  “Damn,” he muttered. “You fell outside the cloak. You’ve got to keep up!” He lunged and grabbed her, his gaze wild. M@ti felt an unnatural strength in those hands and didn’t fight as he turned her around and parted the branches enough for her to peer toward the specheads across the park. “You have to swap out your vitals, now!”

  So he knew about her little trick too?

  “Tell me who you are,” she demanded.

  “Do it.” His grip tightened.

  If the old man was an AI and this a test, she’d already failed. Searchlights burned through the stitch of branches and needles. They seemed to concentrate, drawn together like a collapsing star.

  She looked back at Knuckles. He’d come around but stayed pressed against the wall. One hand on his neck, she could see he’d lost his specs. She doubted he had any other implants. He could maybe walk away from all this if they didn’t get caught right now, right here.

  M@ti picked the furthest spechead she could see and made the switch.

  The sky erupted in a frenzy of bladed rotors and searing light. As the drones converged above the far away figure, the old man shoved her toward the steps. She checked that Knuckles had followed before racing up them. At the top, she glanced back toward the open field.

  A woman squinted into a sky bright enough to foul her shielded goggles. Her plain smock whipped against her. M@ti waited to see what would happen, aware of Knuckles’ dazed stare as he climbed the steps. The old man’s iron grip dragged her away. She thought she heard a scream.

  They raced across the intersection, dodging traffic and pausing only long enough to dash between openings. They took to the narrow side streets, avoiding an open plaza M@ti always visited on her way to work.

  Another useless statue rested there of a wild-haired man in a long tailed coat. This one didn’t even have a practical purpose like the giant sundial. Sayings and names surrounded the plaza on plaques; words which she’d often thought of as a protective ward. They spoke of rights and peril and slavery. Thousands walked or rode past that monument everyday with their eyes fed by the narcotic glow of their specs.

  Not her. She’d always stopped. Now she couldn’t.

  Constellations of the night sky stamped one side of the plaza in bronze. She recalled following the connecting lines, naming the stars. Beneath that ran one of the many secret phrases she’d committed to memory, much like the words on the sundial. But this phrase mentioned the North Star. Because of that, it had implanted itself in her mind on first sight. As she fled through darkened streets, trying to steal glances of the night sky, she hoped the words were true.

  ...under the flickering light of the north star, behind some craggy hill or snow-covered mountain, stood a doubtful freedom.

  Her former life stripped away with each passing block. She’d never see that plaque again. She wasn’t welcome here anymore. Had she ever been?

  M@ti could only hope she’d freed herself. Knuckles too. If not, she’d only doomed them both to constant flight. No longer cursed with her invisible life or his fabricated one, they’d be banned from everything which kept them alive.

  Knuckles ran beside her, his face stretched in anguish. This wasn’t physical pain. She knew he was having the same desperate thoughts. Wind chilled the tears streaking underneath her temples.

  Central Park’s north entrance grew closer. M@ti was surprised when their guide led them there. The old man had slowed enough to keep her in range of his jamming device and gave them frequent, urgent glances.

  They took a steep, rocky path which led to a crumbling hilltop building. Markers and plaques long lost, her old map simply called this the “Block House” with no further explanation.

  Names of all the major landmarks around the city had been gleaned from that one paper treasure in her collection. She’d never added it to her image archives. What had once felt like a potential betrayal seemed like a missed opportunity now. It would rot on the wall of her rooftop aerie and she’d never see it again.

  She just wanted to go home.

  Tears continued to run down her cheeks as they made the climb toward the rocky outcropping. Older than maybe the city itself, the jumble of gray and red stone looked more cliff than structure. Vines traced crooked paths between the irregular stone blocks. The roof long gone, the iron door chained and locked, this was an unlikely hiding place.

  The old man hopped up the steps and snapped the heavy chain with his bare hands. She shot a glance at Knuckles who hadn’t yet shaken off his shock.

  “Dead end,” she huffed after she forced her legs to climb the craggy steps.

  The old man ignored her. He tugged at a severed flag pole rising from the center of the open room. The heavy concrete base of the pole shifted.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  He mopped sweat from his brow. “I’m with the Fel-0-Sh!p.”

  Finally, an answer. Hackers. Cryptoanarchists. She never should have downloaded TrueSight.

  M@ti wiped her eyes against her forearm. “And you came here just to get me banned for downloading your warez?”

  With a grunt, he slid the base to the side revealing a hole drilled through solid rock. Rungs ran down the side. “You did that for yourself. You were always going to do that. You’ve been flagged as a risk since your school days. We just waited for you to act.”

  She didn’t want him to be right. In the Nexus she’d had the urge to destroy it all. That had been her own doing. But the further they got from her home, her collection, the more she wanted to go back.

  “My band.” Knuckles startled her. “You said I didn’t have much of one left.” He’d shaken off the shock though he’d joined their c
onversation at a point somewhere right outside the church.

  A face knotted in urgency was all she knew of the old man. With Knuckles question, it softened. “They’re dead. We will be too if you don’t hurry.”

  They both stood staring through the stranger. She knew immediately what he said was true. M@ti’s silent tears returned.

  “That woman then. The one I tagged in the park.”

  The old man didn’t speak. He shook the flagpole impatiently.

  M@ti couldn’t bring herself to look at Knuckles. She nearly reached for his hand instead, steeling herself to feel his flesh against hers, but she lost her nerve. Their skin brushed as he passed. Without so much as a glance, he groped for the rungs and descended into the hole. Numb, M@ti followed him down, beneath a city which she figured was the only friend she had left.

  12

  They descended into a musty damp so thick M@ti figured they could swim to the bottom. All her time spent in Central Park and she never knew this was here. She’d climbed over the stone wall once, sure, but found nothing of interest. Livingstone and his robotic actuators might’ve been able to slide the stone slab, but he’d never even gone past the locked gate where he’d fretted for her safety.

  “You said a quick peek for any trash or treasures,” he’d said that day. “Quick implies fast.”

  “Time is relative,” she replied.

  “To the observer,” he added. “I observe you are too slow.”

  “Maybe the farther away I get,” she called, first straddling the top of the wall, then swinging down to find a foothold on the far side before continuing to the uneven, weed choked floor. She met him on the other side of the gate and gripped the bars. “The bigger the difference in what quick really means?”

  “Come out, please.”

  “This is my job, right? To wriggle into places you can’t. Assist your collection routine?”

  Livingstone nodded. “Do you see any trash?”

  She found a corner Livingstone couldn’t readily see into. “Maybe.”

  The corner was a gravel slope where the weeds sprouted little yellow flowers. Out of sight, she sat down on the rough ground and ran her fingers in the chalky dirt. She recalled the childhood lot where she’d daydreamed and scrounged. Play which her so-called parents only barely tolerated had become her life.