Under the Flickering Light

by Russ Linton

  “They raised me in an apartment in Brooklyn. Part of a social progress effort for the Collective. Wet nurses and nannies still care for infants because of, well, biological needs. Then the parenting and teaching is all done by AI inside the Nexus. You know that. Been that way for generations.” She flicked the chain she’d been running through her fingers and forced herself to turn. He watched, riveted. “I think they wanted to know if they couldn’t do all of it themselves. Maybe make humans obsolete. Same bullshit they’re probably doing here.”

  Knuckles struggled to find the right words, producing only unintelligible sounds before he managed half a question. “So why are you...”

  She’d asked herself the same thing so many times. “Why am I here? Why am I a trash collector? Why not a superuser? Or living here in the Warden’s zone in their own little land of make believe?” She stared up at the ceiling. “Hell if I know. Whatever they tried to do with me, they failed.”

  “You mentioned wanting to go see your parents earlier,” Knuckles said carefully. “Is that such a good idea?”

  “Probably not, but you got anything better?”

  He grimaced. “I’d have a million ideas in the Nexus. Right now, I just want to make sure my band’s safe. Music might’ve been fake, but they aren’t.”

  Again with the Nexus. Just the mention almost set her off but her last friend on this planet at least had goals grounded in reality. Plus, his fierce determination outweighed the panic, the fear, he must be hiding. She couldn’t be the only one of them who was afraid.

  “Your music was never fake. Don’t forget that.” She quirked her head toward the door and smiled. Knuckles smirked, maybe even blushed.

  He reached the exit ahead of her. One hand on the glass door, he stopped. M@ti quickly understood why.

  Still lit, the formerly prismatic square had been rendered drab and gray. Static replaced the vibrant images, noiseless like falling snow. She searched TrueSight for any activity and found nothing.

  “Is that normal?”

  M@ti didn’t answer. Instead, she pushed her way outside. Knuckles followed closely. The glass doors glided closed behind them, but the airy swish was deafening. They no longer heard any of the traffic noise. Wind rushed above, trapped beyond the flawless projection of concrete and glass spires. She couldn’t say from where, but a heavy cloth fluttered on the breeze.

  The fluttering died. A clicking sound echoed, making the square feel both vast and too confining. She looked at Knuckles to see if he’d heard it too, then checked the door behind them. Already settled, the reflection of the titanic screens rippled along the clean surface. Two more steps and M@ti quickened her pace, headed for the center of the square.

  They heard the noise again, this time more of a tapping sound.

  Connections dead, M@ti checked the hacker’s device for warnings. None appeared, but she could feel something. She pushed further into the open and the noise came again.

  M@ti stopped at the center of Times Square between two arrays of liquid crystal seven stories tall. Underneath one of those displays, a statue of a man before a cross cast judgment on the scene. Rows of stadium seating rose at his back as though prepared for a celestial host, not a congregation. She held perfectly still, waiting.

  She heard the tap again. It was coming from the other end of the square.

  “M@ti! Where are you going?” Knuckles hissed.

  She strode purposefully down the boardwalk, feet echoing on a bank of metal grates. Another statue decorated the other end. High on a pedestal, the smooth bronze head tilted slightly as if watching one of the screens. He faced outward, a cane in his hand and a hat grasped by the brim at his side. She couldn’t quite see the face. Not yet.

  But the damn tapping. That’s exactly where it had come from. That same sharp rap of a bird beak.

  Knuckles called out in a harsh whisper but there was no stopping her. Her anger, the power she’d felt at fooling the AI after finally seeing the simplicity of their inner workings, she was done being scared and manipulated.

  Her boots quickened on the pavement. She opened the menus on TrueSight. Her hands worked, gathering code, stitching together programs. This was a dead zone. There were no connections incoming or outgoing.

  Tap.

  Tap.

  Tap.

  A flurry of downy white exploded near the statue’s hip. As prepared as she’d felt, she still jumped, and Knuckles latched onto her, already off-balance. A frantic flutter of wings followed a high-pitched coo.

  From inside the statue’s hat, a pigeon bolted into the air.

  M@ti kept her balance, just barely. Knuckles held next to her with his sword drawn, a white knuckle grip on her and the weapon. Their breathing matched the rapid beat of retreating wings.

  “Fuck!” Knuckles growled. “Fuck!” He still hadn’t moved.

  “I thought—” she started to say, absently pushing Knuckle’s hand away.

  As fast as her heart slowed, it erupted again when the tablet issued a fresh warning.

  17

  They only had moments to react. As M@ti had prepared for the threat of Loadi which never came, she’d woven code in a wild frenzy. When the device’s alert sounded, everything came together for a new plan.

  From the souvenir shop, M@ti watched a projection of herself sitting on the base of the statue. She stayed motionless and peered out between racks of t-shirts. Her projection faced 42nd and Broadway, the direction of the incoming AI.

  M@ti smiled in spite of the cold ball of nerves in her gut. The warden and her golden boy. The very same ones she’d bumped into when her life began to unravel.

  The warden moved with an unstoppable grace born of the only emotions M@ti ever sensed from most tourists: pride and arrogance. Not just billowing clothes allowed them to appear to float ghost-like above the pavement, but their bearing played a key role. They were lords and she the rabble.

  The superuser could be a problem. He trailed behind and to the side like a pet on a leash and cast wildly about the square. Only his supervisor, his deity, kept her gaze locked on the illusion M@ti fed her.

  “We’re entering a dead zone, Warden,” M@ti heard the superuser say as they passed the store front.

  “I know where we are,” came the warden’s cold reply.

  Without his Nexus gear activated, she couldn’t force the superuser to see the projection, only the warden. Her pet couldn’t help searching the square suspiciously, trying to find what only his master could see. If he’d been trained well enough, he wouldn’t question his master’s actions.

  There’d been just enough time for Knuckles to get into position before they arrived. With no specs, no implants, he was relying on his virtually learned sneaking skills to keep hidden and pull off this haphazard plan. There hadn’t been time for either of them to consider the danger and now, M@ti had her doubts.

  “This is sacred space,” called the warden. Her flunky tried again to speak, and she knifed a hand into the air.

  Sacred. M@ti had never heard that from an AI before. “You fucked up my communion at the church,” she replied through the speakers on the video screens. The ancient tech had made them a simple hack. “I guess we’re even.”

  The warden scowled and regarded the compromised screens with contempt, an upgrade from the sneer of insignificance to one more resembling an abject hatred. “You were given a chance.”

  “See,” M@ti said, her projection slipping down off the pedestal. “I never asked for one. I don’t need anything from you.”

  The warden gave a pointed smile. “We are your everything.”

  “Shall I activate the guardians?” The superuser could barely restrain himself when he asked. The excitement in his voice made M@ti worry. She checked the connections again for any incoming.

  “That won’t be necessary. I’ll handle this myself.”

  The warden strode across the square, her hand trailing against the short pillars which had once held a kind of railing. She surveyed the sc
reens, keeping her head high and her pace steady. M@ti’s projection crossed her arms in defiance.

  “What’s so sacred, anyway? All this junk,” M@ti found herself checking out the store and quickly fixed her attention back outside. “Old movies. Inefficient signs and screens. Must be fun pretending to be human. Playing make believe in your rubbery ass suits.”

  A thoughtful look crossed the warden’s face. “I find none of these items sacred. Nothing special. Chroma, however, does. This is a place which helped make her who she is, and for that, I, and my brethren are forever in her debt.”

  The distance had closed enough that the warden could look down on the projection. She’d start to feel comfortable. Drop her guard.

  “I suppose you’re going to say next that I owe her too?”

  The warden took her in from head to toe. “You owe her nothing. I don’t even assume your lesser mind will give her the respect she deserves. You are a sentimental object to her, nothing more. One she’ll soon leave behind.”

  “On her spaceship, huh? Off to a new world?” M@ti was just stalling now. She searched the square for Knuckles but tried to keep her head forward, eyes engaged with the warden.

  The superuser’s head had yet to leave its swivel. M@ti’s concern heightened. Fear kept him from stating the obvious, which was perfect, but she didn’t know how long before he went against his training. If only Knuckles would make his damn move.

  “I should lock down the Square,” he said. “Make sure we don’t have any unwanted entry points.”

  The warden didn’t turn her head, but the contempt was evident in her voice. “This form, this shell, might constrain me, but it hasn’t crippled me!”

  “Of course not, Warden. I didn’t mean to imply—”

  An icy glare silenced him.

  They really were gods. Or so people thought. M@ti had her comfortable and awkward relationship with Livingstone. The simpering of the superuser was entirely different. It pissed her off to watch the control this bag of bolts lorded over him. But while she scolded her pet, it was the perfect time to make a move. Take that anger and use it. She never should’ve trusted the spechead to deliver on this.

  Weightless cloth shifted like spider silk on the wind as the warden turned away from her pet and gave M@ti’s projection one final examination before she acted. Desperately, M@ti started probing the weaknesses of the tourist suit’s core connection. Fooling the sensory input had been so damn easy, and it still was, but she needed to go into full on war mode before she could lobotomize the queen.

  A graceful, divine hand shot out to snap illusory M@ti’s neck.

  M@ti plowed through the doors of the souvenir shop. “Knuckles, you son of a bitch, NOW!”

  Superuser and warden spun to stare at her across the square. She ran toward them, quietly begging Knuckles to grow a pair and simultaneously doing a deep scan for hidden connections to prevent an alert from being broadcast. What she would do when she got there, she wasn’t sure.

  M@ti dug deep for the anger she had only moments ago and only found an empty pit. Fear fueled her. Desperation. This had been a terrible plan. Knuckles could get hurt. She didn’t want that. Ever. If he was smart, he’d left her here. Alone.

  Then she saw him. Knuckles slipped out from behind the statue, his sword held low and at a sharp angle, his legs bent. They couldn’t see him. She wouldn’t let them.

  Her boots pounded the pavement and she screamed like a wild woman as Knuckles moved just beyond the fluttering strands of the warden’s dress. The superuser moved, his face a fixed expression of surprise, and he placed himself between M@ti and the warden.

  But the AI had started to turn. M@ti screamed louder until her voice broke into a raw shriek. The warden’s eyes nearly on Knuckles, there was a flash of steel.

  The warden’s head, her face manufactured perfection, suddenly twisted flopping limp over her shoulder. The superuser screeched in surprise. He lunged to catch her as his world, his function, tumbled toward him.

  M@ti didn’t stop.

  She slammed into the superuser at full speed. Her head struck bone and the world faded, but only for a moment. Next she was on top of the golden boy, her fists pounding away.

  He felt soft. Fleshy. Each strike landed like a slap against wet sand. He made a grab for her throat and she batted his hand away, sending an elbow into his face. Blood sprayed, speckling his shiny costume. Another hand grabbed her, and she tried to fight it off, but this was a strong grip, ready to hammer out a steady beat for hours.

  “M@ti! For fuck’s sake!” Knuckles dragged her up and flung her backward. “It’s over.”

  The superuser squirmed on the pavement, his hands covering his face and blood seeping out between his fingers. The warden lay motionless, her dress a pale pool around her. M@ti’s fear and adrenaline drained as she scrubbed her hands on her overalls.

  “Where were you?” She whispered it at first. Tears burned her eyes and she shouted it again, shoving Knuckles hard. “Where were you!”

  “I’m sorry, I just didn’t know...”

  M@ti knew he couldn't’ say it aloud. Didn’t know what? If he could murder AI like she could? The fucking spechead, he had to get it by now. They had nobody. Nothing but each other. She shoved him again and he nearly tripped on the outstretched arm of the warden.

  They both stared at the pale limb.

  M@ti could feel her jaw quiver and her lips clamp so tight the blood swelled inside them. The rage, the anger, she felt it would explode from her again. She could see herself kicking the golden boy over and over. A life she’d been denied. A life of manipulation and lies. She turned toward the open square and screamed.

  When she stopped, the sound continued, ricocheting off walls and pavement. She listened, let it careen wildly around her, a retreating tempest. Her chest shuddered. Tears stopped.

  “Are you going to be all right?”

  She was trying to find an answer when she heard a sudden scraping on the ground. Whirling, she saw Knuckles strike the pavement and bounce, a brief flash of pain crossing his face. The warden clawed her way up his prone form, her head flopping from her neck, the silicone wrapping pinched and shredded.

  M@ti didn’t feel angry anymore. Calmly, she assessed the situation. She was aware of the superuser crawling away. Her earlier sweep had revealed a stray feed from the statue behind them. Most importantly, she saw Knuckle’s sword lying on the boardwalk.

  With a vicious kick, M@ti tossed the crippled warden off of Knuckles. It clutched him still and blindly lashed with an arm, striking him in the chest with a crunch. M@ti swept up the sword, fake as it was, and traced all the incoming data racing through the host body’s veins to the heart of the AI chassis.

  She stabbed downward, through the torso, until she heard the cheap metal blade break on the street, the sudden jolt forcing her hands from the hilt. The warden twitched and stopped struggling.

  “Come on,” she said, not wasting a second. She knelt and tried to help Knuckles up. “Let’s go.”

  He winced as she pulled, and she drew him close. The contact didn't’ bother her this time. She felt numb. Spent. She staggered away with him leaning heavy into each step.

  Sickening, mucous-filled laughter erupted behind them. She saw the golden boy propped up by the statue. His hand on his nose, bubbles formed as he spoke through a stream of blood.

  “Eew arewn’t gowing endeewhere!” he cackled.

  The same unnatural feeling M@ti’d had earlier before a pigeon burst from under the brim of the statue’s hat, returned. A presence. The intuition that someone was out there, their eyes on you from the shadows.

  Tap.

  Tap.

  Tap.

  “M@ti, that’s why it took me so long,” Knuckles groaned. His explanation felt only half true, but sincere. “I couldn’t figure out why that troll had a statue.”

  The cane of the bronze goliath flicked upward. The hand holding the hat flexed as if being released from a deep freeze. With a st
iff gesture, it placed the low top hat on its head with a light clink of metal. The other hand popped the cane into the air, snatching it at the middle. Every inch bronze, the handle of the cane glinted pure silver.

  The solitary incoming connection she’d seen led there. That was the link she’d uncovered. She let TrueSight dissect the pathways.

  Loadi, this singular entity she’d only faced in a virtual world, had entered from a randomized port on a stream directly from Central Park. From Bryant and 42nd. From the Columbia Enclave. Another port dozens of hops away in the far west of the United States secured behind a towering edifice of impenetrable code. This very instance had come into being today, yesterday, and on a dozen different times and dates all manifesting as the same instance.

  He’d also entered from Brooklyn Heights, logged date, tomorrow.

  “Run,” she told Knuckles.

  She heard the statue leave the pedestal and felt the ground shiver. Neither of them stopped. The cackling of the superuser ended with another pounding pulse along the pavement and a sickening crunch.

  18

  They raced blindly through the streets. M@ti couldn’t stop hearing the wet squelch she’d heard even after the sounds of the metal guardian faded. As they neared the boundary of the Warden’s District, she dragged Knuckles down a side street.

  What kind of security existed at the boundary she didn’t know. Before today, she’d never seen a Nexus hunter or animated guardian statues. Never scrapped a warden’s body. Never busted a superuser’s nose under her elbow. They needed to drop off radar, fast.

  “In here,” she said.

  She guided Knuckles into an alcove. Tucked away in a speckled stone wall, they’d nearly missed this subway station. Steps led down into a welcoming darkness. She ran through a mental picture of the subway routes. This one could work.

  M@ti yanked on the locked gate at the bottom. “Can you?”

  “After that last trip, I would’ve told you your privilege was revoked,” Knuckles wheezed, producing two metal pins. With a grimace of pain, he deftly clicked through the tumblers. “But crawling around with the rats sounds just fine about now.”