Under the Flickering Light

by Russ Linton

  “I’m sorry about your stuff. Sleep, Knuckles. Let me think about this. You’ve had a bad day.”

  For a long time, she couldn’t even tell if he was breathing. After far too long, his chest shuddered, and he seemed to return to reality. “Good idea, but we sleep in shifts, like Dungeon Delvers. You never know what these guys might do while we’re sleeping.”

  M@ti nodded. “Fine. I’m on watch first.”

  “Good. Midnight, that’s a rogue’s playground. Wake me then.”

  She watched him squirm underneath the blankets, his back to the wilds. He slipped into a fitful sleep and she winced at every jerk of his limbs. Before long, Kraken returned with the blankets as promised. He kept quiet and lightly tucked an extra one around Knuckles.

  “Sleep. You’ll be safe here.”

  She took the other blanket, avoiding Kraken’s kindly stare and only covering herself once he’d padded into the night and she’d heard the door of the truck cab close. The latch was a startling sound in the constant thrum of insects and creatures, a teeming universe M@ti’d never heard before above the passing hovs in the park where the walls once kept her safe.

  33

  M@ti lay in the crisp outside air with a mildewing blanket pulled up to her chin. Knuckles had cocooned himself, his hair gathered in a little tuft at the top. She’d often fallen asleep on the roof of her aerie while gazing at the stars. She knew Knuckles was a bit of an explorer as well, but he’d likely never napped under the warm sunshine in the park or slept with the cool limestone wall on his back.

  Yeah, he and the band had logged plenty of pseudo-wilderness time in their Nexus adventures, but she felt like it was finally sinking in for him that this experience, this vast open world with no boundaries, wasn’t the same. Even she felt it. Normally the ever-present hum of hovs and drones would lull her to sleep.

  The night out here was full of strange noises. Trees would knock together, wood on wood. Birds called, never regular, happy trills but startling intermittent screeches. As the fire cooled, she realized that darkness was total. She might have followed Knuckles’ example and hidden herself from the unseen threats and the unnerving sounds, but with her eyes uncovered, at least she had the sky.

  Naked. Fully revealed. She couldn’t take her eyes off it. She felt as if she could see past the edges of the solar system and distinguish colors millions of miles away without the help of a telescope. Hell, if some wild animal attacked, she wasn’t even sure she’d be able to fight it off. This view could be worth getting perma-banned.

  A chorus erupted far away, at first a lonely howl then joined by a quarrelsome throng of barks and yips. Dogs of some kind, she told herself. It didn't seem too different from the crypto speak of these great hacker minds intent on fighting with each other as much as their so-called enemy.

  How does a pick-up group full of randos ever survive? She began to wonder if maybe she’d been wrong. If Chroma had not only saved humanity, but actually made them into something better.

  Being called a thrall had pissed her off. Secretly, she’d started to enjoy it. Finally, she wasn’t alone anymore.

  Knuckles shifted underneath the blanket next to her. She watched him breath, slow and steady. M@ti turned to her side and put her hand near his, not quite touching. They’d been friends, acquaintances. At the Croxton Terminal she’d felt a deeper connection. In Loadi’s strange realm, she’d held his hand. She wanted to understand what more they might have together if the world would just stop chasing them.

  As quietly as she could, she rolled to her side and stared into the encroaching dark. The campfire was a dull orange pit, no flame but an almost suffocating heat. She fought the fatigue it brought, trying to come up with a plan. Whatever it was, she needed to stay in control. Bring down the system? Definitely. But without killing the thralls, the specheads, her people.

  Loadi was the biggest problem. If she were right, even the system itself wanted to be rid of him. He’d been locked out of critical core functions. That meant not even Chroma trusted him. But that bitch needed to die and if it meant an AI genocide like Loadi said, she’d do it.

  Soon, M@ti was asleep. She dreamed of a hunter chasing her and when he caught her, she didn’t cleanly blast him into digital bits. She pulled out a knife and cut his throat, slowly, watching the blood drain and hearing him gurgle. Thousands more waited, on their knees, waiting for her to execute them.

  One down, and her hands, her arms, her chest, were already soaked.

  A HAND COVERED HER mouth. Another gripped her arm, holding her steady. More hands grasped her, and she arched her back and tried to scream. A sharp pain shot through her arm. M@ti tried one last surge of strength.

  Her eyes shot open. Her interface was up, LUX blasted to the highest settings and defensive code scrolled repeatedly. She saw the fading trace of a connection stringing deeper into the camp.

  Lembas bent over her.

  He had his hand on her mouth. For a bookish-looking guy, his grip was powerful. Two other Enigma disciples stood close by, one kneeling and pinning her. They were armed.

  “M@ti?” Lembas whispered, glancing over his shoulder. “You awake?”

  Her eyes darted around the campsite for Loadi. She thought for a second she’d found him, a sharp angle against the forest outlining his overcoat. No, that was just a tree.

  She turned her attention back to Lembas and searched his face. Calm, he seemed worried. She swallowed and shook her head.

  “You were having a bad dream. I’m going to move my hand. Please don’t scream.”

  M@ti nodded again and sucked in a deep breath as his hand pulled away. “What are you doing?” she asked in a harsh whisper.

  Lembas looked troubled. “I’m sorry. You just can’t be making that kind of noise.” His gaze slipped to the others. “No time to explain, but don’t worry, we’ll bring your friend.”

  A numbness struck her skull. Shadows smeared across her vision. She turned her head toward Knuckles. He wasn’t bundled in the blanket anymore. He lay atop it, stretched out straight on his side. His arms draped across the ground and his mouth hung open. Daemon hovered over him with a syringe in his hand.

  M@ti tried to scream and nothing came out. Lembas held her, sadness in his eyes, before he lay her next to Knuckles and nodded at the preacher.

  She tried to figure out if this was all part of the same nightmare. Maybe she’d never woken up. Maybe, just maybe, a bunch of crazy hackers hadn’t just drugged her.

  The night sky flickered and faded.

  A DISTANT RATTLE CREPT into M@ti’s ears. Lost in darkness, the first thought she had was of the subway deep below the Manhattan Preserve and the working tracks in the Warden’s District with their rhythmic thump like a mechanical pulse. She’d just had to see them working. Knuckles too.

  But the subway cars could hold a steady beat. This noise was a disjointed flailing. It sent vibrations along her numb skin and every so often, she could feel herself bucked into the air, floating. She wanted to drift there, enjoy the weightless sensation.

  Then the drugs wore off.

  She slammed into unforgiving metal. She realized the reason she couldn’t see was because she’d been blindfolded. She went to claw it off her face and found her arms trapped behind her, tied at the wrists.

  An engine roared near the confined space. Outside, rocks and gravel pelted the undercarriage as the wheels careened over a broken earth, sending her smashing into the compartment lid above. M@ti lashed out with her feet and found solid steel.

  “Son of a bitch!” she screamed. She tried to kick at the lid above her. Repeatedly tossed in the air, she could never find the leverage. “You son of a bitch!”

  M@ti thrashed and screamed. As her eyes adjusted, she could make out a faint outline of the trunk from the light seeping around the frame. The rusted compartment was empty save her and a heavy ammonia smell coming from the rotted carpeting. She started trying to work her hands out of the ropes, but they wouldn’t budge. Shoulders
strained, her throat hoarse, she lay back and concentrated on not being bludgeoned to death against the trunk.

  As she lay there, she spotted the Ember toy. It had come out of her pocket and was ricocheting around the compartment. Special powers could’ve gotten her out of here. But she was just some thrall to be traded back and forth like a fucking toy.

  A lucky bounce and the figure ended up near her feet. Her boot came down and she heard a satisfying snap.

  She’d show them who was in control. Who really was going to determine the future.

  34

  M@ti squinted painfully into a desert landscape. No skyscraper canyons to shield her from the sun, the yellow dwarf punched her unmasked retinas well above its weight class. Sparse scrub stretched for miles. She saw a distant ridge which broke the flatness, but it too was covered with little more than sand.

  They were on a shattered stretch of asphalt, stranded islands of tarry black in a sea of sand. Vehicles resurrected from junkyards and raised to handle the broken roadways and trackless wilderness spread out behind them. Across the asphalt, a concrete building squatted, sealed by a weathered but imposing steel door. Past that was a helicopter from a different era. She wondered if it still flew.

  “Sorry about the ride,” Lembas muttered.

  “And the ropes,” she growled, rubbing her wrists. “Oh yeah, the kidnapping. The drugging! You piece of shit.”

  Her hands shook and her jaw ground audibly. She wanted nothing more than to punch him square in the mouth. But she’d gotten her first painful glimpse while being hauled out of the trunk and knew how useless it would be.

  A dozen Disciples of Enigma stood around clutching weapons. Knives at their belts and guns in their hands, she didn’t know how they’d react if she left a few of their leader’s teeth in her work boot. One even had a sword strapped to his back. The guns appeared to have been made from spare parts and she didn’t have any idea if they even fired, but they appeared menacing enough. These weren’t things you saw outside the Nexus.

  “You were in danger with Kraken, M@ti,” Lembas said. “You aren’t safe from that virus. They wanted to send you off to die.”

  The bluntness of the words shocked her. Then she recalled all the in-fighting, all the one-upmanship and chaos she’d witnessed. While she never quite trusted Kraken, she didn’t see him as that sort of person.

  “There seems to be a list,” she said, glaring at him. “Get in line behind your asshole preacher friend.”

  Lembas looked away. He was soft, she could tell. However, he’d surrounded himself with people who weren’t. The men toting their improvised guns looked more than ready to test them out.

  “Daemon is already inside,” he muttered. “Let’s go.”

  “Not without Knuckles. Where is he?”

  “Right here.”

  Knuckles emerged from behind one of the vehicles. His eye was swollen and a gruff looking wastelander had him by the arm. She rushed to his side.

  “What happened?”

  Lembas gave a guilty nod and the man guarding Knuckles let him go. “He came out of the anesthesia a little more...confrontational.”

  M@ti reached up to touch his face and examine the damage. Knuckles jerked away. “Watches, M@ti. More stupid Nexus game bullshit.”

  M@ti clenched her jaw and glared into the blazing sun. “I’m sorry.”

  “Come on.” Lembas turned toward the small building. “Let’s move.”

  Shame gave way to anger and M@ti stalked toward Lembas. His armed goons casually blocked her way. The right words weren’t coming to her. She knew she wanted to tell him off, take Knuckles, and walk away. The vast emptiness of the desert though frightened her. A flat horizon loomed worse than an undeveloped Nexus space which she could control or log off from when she needed to rejoin the world.

  M@ti sneered at the guards and backed down. Pissed as he was, Knuckles had moved to stand beside her, aiming his frustration at the guard with the sword hilt sticking up over his shoulder. She watched between the guards as Lembas approached the door. Her interface flickered to life.

  There was a connection nearby.

  Lembas put on a glove. She tried to watch as he punched a keypad and her vision blurred in a perfect rectangle across his finger movements. When he finished, he stuffed the glove in a pocket and with a strained groan, the door automatically opened. Lembas waved them inside.

  Metal supports ribbed the narrow hallway. The space inside was even smaller than the box-like concrete building appeared on the outside, and she wasn’t sure how they were all supposed to fit until she noticed the shiny metal elevator doors at the far end.

  “What is this place?”

  “Used to be her home.”

  “Her?”

  “Chroma.”

  M@ti and Knuckles’ eyes met, sharing their astonishment, his muted by the swelling. She felt a pang of sympathy. He looked away. That had to have hurt. She didn’t know if he’d had time yet to fully recover from being pounded on by the warden.

  “She lived here?”

  Lembas tapped the button and the doors opened. Guards ushered them inside. “She did, before she became Chroma. She was just a girl then. They called her Charlotte.”

  M@ti balked and a guard had to jab her forward with the butt of his rifle. She snarled in annoyance. Knuckles and several guards followed while the rest waited topside.

  “She wasn’t always an AI? How is that possible?”

  Lembas gave a weary smile. “That’s the question, isn’t it? How. We’ve collected everything we know about her in this archive. While some of my compatriots want to control the future with the knowledge they’ve gleaned, I want to know exactly what happened in the past. Knowing those details puts us that much closer to taking back control.”

  “The Collective has always said that uploading human minds was impossible.”

  “Yes, they’d say that. It’s sorta true. Another reason they also claim which makes them the logical choice to watch over humanity. What they aren’t telling you is that the original singularity was a genetically modified human like us.”

  “What about the others? The wardens? The tourists? They’re AI.”

  “There’s plenty of debate whether they experience a consciousness of any real sort.” Lembas was excited now, his words tumbling out. “They’re more like highly advanced AGI.”

  “Agility?” Knuckles swollen eye only added to his look of confusion. “Try making some sense.”

  Lembas sneered. “Artificial general intelligence. Turing test, Coffee test, Employment Test, that sort of thing. If it can talk to you and convince you it’s human, make a pot of coffee or work a job on its own, then it has demonstrated general intelligence.”

  “Once you take over, your robot slaves can even make you cannolis,” Knuckles said, his tone bitter.

  The punch to his face seemed to have loosened up his tongue. M@ti didn’t take this as a good sign. Lembas scrunched his brow and ignored the quip. His guards however took note and inched closer to Knuckles in the cramped space.

  “Whatever kind of general tasks the machines can do and appear human doing them, that’s what defines AGI.”

  “But that isn’t what Chroma is?” M@ti asked.

  “Not even close. Some suspect that by extension she provides consciousness to those AGI. Wardens and tourists as you call them...”

  “Supervisors,” M@ti said.

  “Yeah, like those too. They’re all tools. At best, they’re lesser extensions of her. Point being, whatever she is, people didn’t make her intentionally. She sort of made herself.”

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” Knuckles said. He seemed to say it to the elevator in general, his eyes roving.

  “No, it doesn’t. That’s why we need to understand how. That’s the key to knowing what her plans are for humanity, not in trying to read data dumps like tea leaves.” Lembas gave a derisive snort and his friends chuckled.

  “So you’re saying Chroma uploaded herself
into a computer and became the first truly sentient AI?” M@ti asked in astonishment.

  “The only one,” Lembas corrected. “That’s the theory.”

  “And how is your theory better than Kraken’s?”

  “They’d let you believe you’re some sort of prophesied hero who will make the ultimate sacrifice for humanity. It’s quasi-religious bullshit.”

  “I thought quasi-religious bullshit was Daemon’s wheelhouse,” M@ti said.

  Lembas frowned. “We’re allies of convenience. All goes well, and I won’t even need him.”

  He didn’t say much more but clearly, M@ti could tell he wasn’t thrilled about working with Daemon. Maybe there was hope for his hacker after all.

  “Aren’t you afraid Kraken and his crew will come for me if I’m so important?”

  “They’ll try, but they don’t know where this place is. That, and I made sure to disable their trucks.”

  “Deva’s going to be pissed,” M@ti muttered.

  “Beyond pissed,” Lembas said. “I infected the Black Beetle suit too. We can’t risk any disruptions.”

  “When does this ride end?” Knuckles asked, looking at the ceiling. They’d been descending for several minutes now.

  “Almost there,” Lembas replied.

  Moments later, the doors glided open. They faced yet another hallway, this one with a massively thick vault door which was hinged open. They passed several rooms, bunk beds lining the walls. The quarters appeared cramped, so M@ti wasn’t sure that was their original purpose. As they neared the far end of the hallway, the rooms became larger. A plate glass window covered one wall and she watched workers inside hunched over terminals or glassing into specs.

  M@ti checked the signal she’d detected earlier. Stronger, encrypted, it wasn’t automatically connecting to her gear. She surreptitiously set a script running to probe the defenses. Should take her twenty minutes, tops.

  “Keep moving.” A guard shoved Knuckles.