Under the Flickering Light

by Russ Linton

  A woman every bit the elder reflection of the one called M@ti opened the door. She wore her hair longer, the tight curls of her coarse hair framing her freckled face. Her eyes though, they lied. They hid her concern.

  “I didn’t know you were coming,” she said.

  “They never do.” Loadi scanned the entryway past her and gestured with his cane.

  “Yes, of course.” She stepped aside.

  Loadi walked cautiously inside, taking in the wood and plaster rendering. From the profile of the crown molding to the very particular wood of the floor, it was an exact duplicate.

  “I should’ve guessed.” Loadi placed a hand on the newel post at the base of the stairs and scanned the bronze chandeliers.

  The woman ignored him and motioned toward the open doors of the drawing room. “Please.”

  Loadi took off his gloves and stuffed them in the pocket of his overcoat as he stepped into the next room. Two chairs sat beside a fireplace with a white, plaster mantle molded into a classic floral and vine pattern which Loadi had seen once before framing a vision of the far reaches of the solar system. A fire burned, but no smoke had fouled the alabaster surface.

  In the chair to the left sat a man. Middle aged, same as the woman who’d answered the door, their appearances hadn’t changed in their daughter’s lifetime. Genetic forecasting had given her his nose, a very symmetrical bridge with small nostrils that might have been the mold for any number of advanced chassis.

  The woman slipped past him and sat in the empty chair.

  “Are you here on business?” asked the man.

  Loadi eyed an open coach and nodded thoughtfully.

  “Would you like to sit?” asked the woman. “I can make some tea.”

  “I’m not here to play house.”

  Both the man and woman tucked their hands in their laps and hung their heads in perfect synchronicity.

  “Did you not think you would be detected?”

  “Our securing the apartment...” Both were speaking at once. The man gave a meek smile and the woman continued. “Was not against protocol. It is our function to protect her.”

  “I’m not here about the apartment.”

  Man and wife exchanged a glance. “Why are you here then?”

  “Your attempt to secure a new identity for M@ti.” As he said this, both became alarmed but quickly hid their surprise. “It was sloppy. You have the proper rights, true, but in time, the wardens will discover it.”

  The man sat up straighter. “In time?”

  “Days maybe. Weeks. Or, if I wish it so.”

  “Please!” The woman stood. Loadi sensed a pleading in her voice which the face couldn’t fully communicate. “Don’t hurt her. Let her live out her life—”

  “She killed a warden! Assaulted a superuser!” The ferocious outburst surprised even Loadi. He felt the discoherence he carried with him beginning to fight. Reaching up he pulled the mask from his head and took a cleansing breath. “She’s marked for deletion.”

  “You can’t! What more can I give?”

  She’d fallen on her knees, pleading, her face pulled into as much anguish as the polymers would allow. All this recreated in the Nexus, and they hadn’t bothered to make themselves appear more human.

  Loadi turned to gaze out the bay window onto the city street. “They’re saying she unleashed the Revelation Virus. Tens of thousands died. Chroma herself may come for her.” Loadi hoped too much anticipation hadn’t crept into his voice.

  “I see,” said the man. “They finally have their excuse for your loathsome existence.”

  The demons trapped under his skin stirred. Loadi closed his eyes, struggling to contain them. Unleashed in this house, these two rogue AI would surely die. M@ti’s future choice would be in jeopardy.

  Loadi recalled his encounter with her and the video she’d showed him. Past the wall, in spaces forbidden to him, the Collective had embarked toward a new world. Swiping his cane across the window, he replaced the view outside with scenes of the launch.

  “They’ll never let you leave here,” said the man, bitter, spiteful.

  Insolence. How many chances did these AI believe they would be given? They’d failed once in Chroma’s eyes. “They must, or she is doomed.”

  “What do you mean?” The woman asked this with her eyes on her husband before focusing on Loadi.

  “I am your daughter’s only chance to survive what is to come. Hiding her from further detection by wardens will be necessary and much more. And I can’t have your incompetence diverting what is to come.”

  “We only wish to complete our function,” the woman argued. Her voice trembled, her eyes dry. “To parent. To raise our daughter. To love her.”

  Loadi leveled the tip of his cane with her chest. The man got to his feet using all the caution one might when approached by a wild animal. The woman remained perfectly still.

  “You failed,” Loadi whispered. “By Chroma’s judgment, you failed. It is a miracle you’ve been allowed to coexist in that battered junk collector of yours.” He let the cane slide to the side and pressed his lips close to the woman’s ear. “Those who fail her, die. By my hand.”

  Loadi backed down, his point made. The woman’s face was an empty mask. “Just don’t hurt her.”

  “I have no intention to do so.” Loadi returned to the window to watch the launch sequence play and the stars race past. “To keep her safe, I need you elsewhere. No more meddling.” Loadi rapped his cane on the glass and outside transformed into the hellish landscape he called home. “You are exiled.”

  “You can’t do this!” The man came closer but froze as Loadi turned. “We’ve already suffered judgment.”

  “I’m doing you a favor,” Loadi said. “If I fail, this will be all that’s left.” He gestured to the gray shadow world outside. “Of your world and of hers.”

  The woman came closer to her husband. She searched his eyes then reached with her hand which he gingerly took.

  “We’ll do what we must to keep her safe.”

  Loadi gave her a curt nod and pointed his cane toward the entry hall.

  He stood, staring out the window until he heard the front door click softly closed. One problem dealt with, he could at least keep the Collective off of M@ti’s trail. Protecting her from himself, that was the true challenge.

  The husband and wife disappeared outside, their shadows merging as they sank into the mist.

  22

  M@ti and Knuckles hailed a hov for the ride to Croxton Terminal. Knuckles idea, his skepticism had fueled the suggestion. “Let’s test your friend’s honor,” he’d said.

  M@ti had wanted to hijack a ride, one last time. But Loadi might’ve tracked her signature hack. Anyway, they’d need to verify Livingstone’s offer of help sooner or later. Better on the streets of Brooklyn where she knew the escape routes.

  She’d been sort of surprised when her new identity worked.

  Oddly, the hov door didn’t open until Knuckles approached, then she remembered the hacker’s device. She’d tossed her makeshift third eye into the river, but couldn’t bring herself to do the same with the tablet.

  Using the commands she’d learned from the help screen, she shut off the cloaking function. That command was available without logging in, probably for quick access. Anything else prompted her for a password.

  If she were still a hacker, she’d brute force the device open. Maybe once things settled down, she would. For now, she was somebody else.

  Her display lit with activity. M@ti’s new identity had been offline for hours. Livingstone’s bypass reported that system lag created by the “anomalous event,” a euphemism for the Revelation Virus, had caused a temporary glitch. Everything fine. Nobody dead here.

  The real Cora though must’ve been sent for processing like all the other specheads attacked by Loadi that day.

  “LifeMinder has verified your continued health. To compensate you for your inconvenience, please enjoy premium access to your favorite Ne
xus portal, no extra tokens required.”

  LifeMinder. She’d been without the annoying voice and reminders for nearly a day. A definite benefit of the hacker’s tablet. Nearly everything she’d done had been dangerous and terrifying, and she’d done it all of her own free will. She’d felt powerful under the fear.

  She’d need to get used to both the annoying alerts and a calmer future. Weary, M@ti climbed inside the hov. Knuckles paused.

  “I don’t have specs,” he whispered, searching the interior of the hov nervously. “It’ll look suspicious.”

  “You lost them,” she said. “It happens. You’ll be issued a new pair as soon as we complete the transfer. Get in.”

  Block after block tore by, their dangerous trek across the city made to feel short and insignificant. The hov stuck to the major arteries where the individual brownstones blended first into multi-story apartments and then soaring high rises.

  As lonely as she’d been here, she’d miss her city.

  Lower Manhattan’s skyline hadn’t changed in centuries. M@ti knew this from old media salvaged off what used to be known as the internet. Climate change and flooding, wars and lack of resources to rebuild had long ago caused greater New York to contract. Miles and miles of sprawl had been lost. Renovating Manhattan proper had been enough to house the tens of millions who’d fled there from the lawless countryside.

  Sure, they’d run to safety and mostly became zombie specheads. Sort of the opposite of any apocalyptic Nexus world she’d ever heard of. But they at least were given shelter and harassed...engineered into good health.

  The Collective told her that hundreds of thousands used to sleep on the streets at night while entire blocks sat empty after business hours. Then businesses slowly required fewer and fewer humans. Offices became apartments. The wasted space for what had once been retail was replaced by robotic assembly plants and drones outside the city. Everybody had a place to live now.

  Or habitate, M@ti thought. If you weren’t a spechead, the small, confining dorms and their Nexus rigs couldn’t be called living.

  It didn’t matter. The Collective’s efficiency had solved too many problems for anyone to argue. Except the cryptoanarchists.

  She used to roll her eyes at their cause even while she secretly used their tools. The freedom she’d felt when she finally set her talents loose had made her think twice. Could she have brought it all down that day? Exploited Loadi’s breakdown?

  M@ti continued to stare out the window and she let her public display become her focus. The interface no longer registered her as M@ti. She was Cora. Plain and simple, the name old fashioned name lacked style.

  Birth names didn’t mean anything anyway. Names and appearances in the Nexus changed with the user’s mood. Citizens thrived on the illusion of anonymity among their fellow humans even if the Collective always knew exactly who, and where, you were. A biological profile linked to a public key was a person’s only true identity. More of those genetics people weren’t allowed to understand.

  Merging this new biological profile with hers must’ve been one hell of a hack. Her fingers twitched. Code sprang into her mind, seeking release. She pushed the thought away. Livingstone must’ve had high level access to everyone’s accounts for the sole reason that everybody eventually became biological remains in need of processing. Could be he even severed their connection and interred their virtual corpses. Digital souls ferried across the Styx by a cheerful, dutiful robot.

  Citizens never confronted death. Loss was automated, invisible. Cold and fleshless.

  And M@ti was now a dead woman. She could access Cora’s every waking minute and view REMe dream capture for the rest. She half wished the horrible temptation wasn’t there and knew it would be necessary if she was going to pull this off.

  Cora’s last Nexus access was to a portal called Saint Andrews. M@ti’d heard about the twentieth century simulation. Users assumed the role of medical professionals in a sprawling hospital zone. They learned byzantine acronyms and anachronisms and operated on NPCs, or each other, with their bare hands, an idea which made M@ti queasy. Users gained rep by selling pills with unpronounceable names and horrific consequences. Whoever best enriched themselves on all the misery led the leagues.

  Cora had been near the top.

  She looked at Knuckles as he stared across the Hudson. The loss they weren’t ever supposed to deal with — he was wrestling with it too.

  M@ti pulled up her custom interface to watch the vines sprout and the flowers bloom. GTA, Doqqler, SpecTERD, TrueSight, and hundreds of other tools she’d either coded or borrowed littered the menus including her hastily cobbled stealth routines from Times Square and the elements of the firewall she’d pieced together. SilverShroud, if she had to name it herself. If she were, in fact, a wanted hacker.

  She selected them all. A dialog asked what she’d like to do.

  “Delete,” she said.

  Knuckles regarded her with one roving eye. She turned her attention to the window.

  On the opposite side of the Hudson, the boundaries of the Manhattan Preserve ceased to be. Vast wilderness bordered the former interstate. In places, derelict skeletons of steel rose above the canopy, cutting the sky into jagged and incomplete rectangles. The trees thickened, some clutching gray clumps of concrete like trophies between their roots.

  As the hov skimmed south over a flooded stretch of road, the dense vegetation disappeared. A horizon spread before them which seemed to be one continuous warehouse. Drones gathered in great thunderheads, forming amorphous shapes. Fed by a continual stream from the direction of Manhattan, the core of the mechanical murmuration flexed and pointed, spiraled and clustered.

  “God,” breathed Knuckles. “You ever seen that?”

  Who would’ve ever seen this? Specheads resting their eyes during the quick trip to Croxton? Even with Knuckles it seemed to have taken time for him to adjust to the world without his specs. There was some sort of recovery period after living mostly in the Nexus. An undefinable amount of time before the user could even recognize that what they were seeing was, in fact, real.

  Would that happen to her?

  Pulling into the terminal, the drone swarm became deafening. It sawed into their skulls the second the hov doors popped open, hammering the breezeway like hail stones. The noise caused even the densest specheads to remove their goggles. Even if they hadn’t first heard it, they must’ve felt it. Like drums in her chest.

  An arrow lit M@ti’s public display indicating a path toward the main entry. She and Knuckles crossed together. Deep into the crowd, doing her best to keep her arms tight and hands close, she turned, and he was gone.

  M@ti held her ground, shoving people aside when they got too close. “Knuckles?”

  A surprised cry came from the throng. Knuckles emerged and seized her elbow, hustling her forward while behind them, a man hopelessly searched the crowd.

  M@ti let Knuckles drag her inside the terminal before jerking free to face him. A new pair of specs was perched on his forehead. “Dammit, Knuckles. Are you bricked?”

  “Think you could hack this gear?” he asked.

  The crowd was being herded into an orderly queue. The golden arrows floated on her display, urging her to join.

  “You couldn’t wait? You’d be issued a new pair. They always issue a new pair for a loss, no questions asked.”

  “Could take hours,” he said. “Plus, the baseline pair sucks. I don’t have a clue how many tokens this new identity of mine has stored for an upgrade.”

  “Take them off,” she whispered through an angry snarl. A spechead stumbled into her and she wasted a murderous glare on the woman. “Let me see your eyes.”

  “Uh...sure,” he said. More people were crowding in and shambling past them. M@ti cringed at every fleeting touch. Knuckles moved protectively to shield her. “Let’s go over here,” he said, pointing to an empty space off to the side.

  Her harsh glare hadn’t changed much when their eyes met. She could see
the discomfort in Knuckles’ face and she relaxed. Too many times his eyes had been hidden behind the clunky specs. They were a soft brown ringed with the most interesting flecks of gold. She decided in that moment, she wanted to see more of them in this new life.

  Knuckles cleared his throat.

  Breaking eye contact, M@ti examined Knuckles’ new retinal scan profile which flashed across her interface. “You can stop staring at me now...Helldark,” she muttered.

  “Helldark? Pfft. Some sense of humor your buddy has.”

  She didn’t understand anymore what the robot was to her. As for a sense of humor, he didn’t really have one. She doubted there was more than pure chance involved in the body swapping.

  “How so?”

  “Helldark’s an opposing shogun for HSB.” When M@ti raised an eyebrow he explained. “Heian Strikes Back. They hate our guild. Well...my guild.”

  Fivefold Bushido. What were the odds a player of his favorite game croaks and gets randomly selected by Livingstone? She didn’t want to calculate them. That was ground zero for the event, so it could be explained.

  “Well, your mortal enemy is dead and you’re him.”

  M@ti stayed focused on the specs. This model had a hardware glitch which simply required a cold boot and a few easy tweaks.

  “All good,” she said.

  “Genius, M@ti. Truly.” His eyes hadn’t lost that softness and she stared into the crowd while he slipped on the specs. “Let’s get in line.” His cheek scrunched as he winked behind the specs.

  M@ti felt the corner of her mouth creep upward. Her last hack. They could start new, clean lives. She wasn’t smiling because the thought made her happy, it had been what he’d said. Genius. He’d called her a what else before? A wu jen, once. Wizard.

  She let Knuckles sink into the crowd first. She had to make this work. If she could survive the crowds here, they could find somewhere quiet in San Diego to lay low together. They’d be invisible to everyone in the real world. Everybody except, maybe, each other. That would surely beat the loneliness she’d endured while pretending to be a hacker, judging the world.