Under the Flickering Light

by Russ Linton

  “Seventh avenue!” M@ti recognized the buildings. “We’re close!”

  “How...close?” Knuckles looked more frantic. They’d lost altitude on the last turn and the helicopter kept fighting, threatening to send the damaged tail spinning ahead of them.

  “Four blocks. Five.”

  Stalled hovs dropped away under the chopper. People lined the streets, frozen in place, unable or unwilling to seek cover without the guidance of their specs. Most had yet to comprehend their gear was offline. One immersed soul stood atop a hov, an invisible cannon in his hands firing into the passing swarm.

  M@ti’s final flier came apart behind them. She couldn’t see it, but saw her connection to it wink out and felt the push as it smashed into the street.

  “That’s the last air unit, dear,” Kraken said.

  “You get maybe one more of those pet names, Krakes.” She tried to sweep the square and came up with nothing. “Can you see any activity in Times Square?”

  “We’ve tried for years.” There was a pause before he came back on the line. “But I show nothing. What now?”

  “Suit up for VR,” M@ti said. “We’re going after Chroma.”

  “The Nexus links are all down across the city,” Kraken replied. “I could hop on a satellite through London, or Dubai, but there’s some interesting activity in the stratosphere...”

  “The Nexus isn’t where we’re headed. There’s a server, isolated from the rest. Chroma fucked up and programmed her murderer. We’ll just have to control it.”

  “M@ti?” Knuckles apprehensively jerked his head, pointing forward. “What’s that?”

  “Up!” Deva shouted at the last second. The Black Beetle shot skyward at a ninety-degree angle.

  Light seeped out from behind a solid barrier of darkness. Not a building. An illusion of the street which continued onward into a darkened Times Square.

  “The screens!” M@ti shouted.

  She had time for that single warning and Knuckles had time to tighten his grip on the controls before they smashed into the membrane. It caught with spectacular force. All the explosions and gunfire from earlier didn’t come close to matching the cacophony which filled the cockpit. Their screams couldn’t penetrate the sheer volume. For an instant, the blackened Times Square image stretched as if they punched through into a different reality and the screen fired a dying glimpse like a collapsing star. Their top rotor seized, and the leading blade hurtled off behind them. As it did, the screen slipped, tangled around the landing gear, and Knuckles and M@ti were flooded with light.

  The helicopter struck the street and bounced once, twice, then plowed into a shower of sparks. Knuckles’ hands had left the controls. One braced him against the dash, the other flung protectively across M@ti’s chest. She felt every muscle in her body straining to keep seated. After the initial violent collision, they entered a shivering skid where the world seemed to move in slow motion.

  Screens lit up, playing the same old-fashioned videos. Advertisements and neon lights cast their otherworldly glow. The chopper’s tail drifted, so gradual, it almost felt careful, intentional. She watched it sweep through the massive display window of the souvenir shop. T-shirts collected against the hull. Boxes of figurines swept clean from the displays, then the tail snapped off completely. The cockpit went into a spin, bright videos swirling past.

  They continued across the square and smashed through a line of traffic control posts, M@ti unsure what could stop them. With a sudden, jarring strike which popped the windscreen from the frame and sent it hurtling into the square, they came to rest.

  She heard a wobble then a groan. M@ti looked dizzily outside her own window to watch the giant statue of Loadi teeter then fall away from the base which they’d smashed into. It fell, unmoving, in a rigid heap on the far side.

  Knuckles’ arm still pinned her. Her heart beat uncontrollably against his skin and she knew he had to feel it. He faced her, panting. “M@ti? You okay?”

  She nodded, her eyes searching the cockpit. She had her arms, legs...Knuckles seemed to be alive. A steady drip beneath his seat caught her attention.

  Red. Watery.

  “Knuckles! You’re bleeding!”

  He looked down, confused. Patting with his hands, he removed the harness, trying to find the source. He raised in the seat and winced. Blood smeared the cushion.

  “My side,” he said. “There’s...blood.” He clutched his left side and sat down hard, staring at his hands.

  M@ti wrestled with the harness and scrambled out of her seat. Sparks fired from the center console and she ignored them, leaning over to inspect. She tried to claw her way closer but couldn’t see where he’d been hit. Hurriedly, she dropped back into her seat and tried her door. Jammed. She felt tears on her face and slammed her boot into the door, but it didn’t budge. Turning, she threw herself across Knuckles and he yelped. His door popped open and she flailed at it with her fingers to keep it wide enough.

  “Get out!” she said.

  Knuckles slid painfully out of the seat and took the short hop to the ground. He was limping away when she saw the red seeping out between his fingers where he held his lower back.

  M@ti scurried over the seat, sliding her hands through the blood, Knuckles’ blood. She didn't’ know what she could do. This hadn’t been part of her plan.

  “Sit down,” she ordered.

  Dazed, his adrenaline finally spent, Knuckles nearly fell on his way to the ground.

  M@ti skidded to his side. She tore open his shirt around the wound. The puncture was small but formed a deep cavity.

  “Shrapnel,” she said, thinking out loud.

  “I don’t feel so good.” Knuckles’ eyes lost focus and he wobbled to one side.

  M@ti caught him and slowly lowered him to the ground. “Kraken! He’s hurt. What do I do?”

  She could patch code. But the blood. She didn’t know what to do about the blood.

  “You can’t lose focus. M@ti, there’s a massive fluctuation in the signal power from orbit. I’m seeing a realignment of at least ten satellites. You’re about to have visitors. Stay with your plan, whatever the hell that was!”

  Tourists and wardens came rushing in from the far end of the square. The toppled statue of Loadi stirred. The screens surrounding them flickered and filled with static then a face which took M@ti’s breath away.

  Chroma had come to protect her sanctuary.

  42

  The ground quivered and fragments of glass danced on the uneven walkway. The crowd of tourist onlookers held at an invisible line north on Broadway, but to the south, at the far end of their trail of helicopter parts and shredded barriers, M@ti’s pack of feral weapons had finally arrived.

  Knuckles staggered to his feet. He was ashen and the warmth of his skin M@ti had only recently discovered was failing. She helped him, trying to support him until they reached cover inside one of the stores.

  M@ti glanced from one threat to the next. The guardian statue had started to rise. Wardens and tourists held ranks as if ready for battle. She ordered her ground forces forward, but they balked.

  Knuckles shook her off. Wobbling, he made his way to the wreckage of the helicopter. He bent, and a grunt of pain escaped as he retrieved the drone rotor blade which had once been embedded in the windscreen.

  He gripped the blade by the end, wielding it like a sword.

  A fake fucking sword.

  “M@ti, go do your hacking thing.” Knuckles scowled and bent his knees, deliberately, gingerly, assuming a combat stance.

  M@ti watched, stunned. “Are you fucking mad? There are no healing potions! No magic bread to eat and buff your health!” She ran at him and threaded her arm through his. “Get...out...of...here.”

  He’d locked into place. What was he doing? Practicing rigor mortis? The damn spechead had to move! Before...

  The guardian rose. It tapped its cane on the pedestal, once, twice, three times and leveled it at them. M@ti called again to her pack of war machines.


  “Kraken! The military hardware! It won’t engage!”

  “Trying!” His reply sounded feverish. “They’re refusing to breach the perimeter. I’m showing a massive influx of data, M@ti. It’s like trying to push them against a hurricane.”

  In the storm of static filling each of the giant screens, a face took shape. A young girl, her features reminded M@ti of the those most common in Fivefold Bushido avatars only her cheeks were more hollow, gaunt even. Ripples of machinery and hoses decorated the smooth curve of her scalp leaving behind a horrendous topography.

  “Perform your function, guardian.” Her voice sounded across the square and through M@ti’s own implants.

  “With pleasure.” Loadi swept his cane and cracked the pedestal before lowering his head and stalking forward.

  “Do something?” Knuckles continued to shield her, but he sounded like he might have surfaced from the shock long enough to understand just how screwed they were.

  M@ti threw open her hacking toolkit. She followed the silver cane grip and the trail of a signal wafting out from under Loadi’s palm. She steadied her hand and tried to manipulate the connection, but it suddenly disappeared only to reappear elsewhere.

  She dragged on Knuckles’ arm and he gave ground to the golem stomping toward them. Her army remained stalled, several in the front ranks pacing back and forth on their disturbing legs, glowing cyclopean eyes watching.

  Knuckles uttered a low growl, a sort of samurai chant. He couldn’t run, and she wasn’t about to leave him. M@ti searched the ground for something to defend herself with.

  Loadi raised his cane.

  “Y’all might want to duck. I’m outta ammo. Coming in hot.”

  Deva! She’d just lit up M@ti’s comms. The Beetle interface had become background noise, but no longer. M@ti saw collision warnings light up her display. A whine sounded above, becoming a roar. The sky tore open as the armor rocketed through the screen. Fists poised, she bore down on the guardian, a fallen angel of pure retribution.

  M@ti seized Knuckles and threw herself on top of him taking them both to the ground.

  Even prone, the violence of the impact sent them flying. She held Knuckles close as they skidded and tumbled across the square, fragments of pavement pelting them on the shock wave.

  Eyes held so tight, M@ti wasn’t entirely sure if she’d blacked out. Her ears rang, and her head pounded. She’d lost Knuckles on the last roll and he’d slid to a stop a meter away. When she crawled toward him, her elbows and knees burned, and muscles cramped with intense pain.

  “Knuck?”

  “Unnnh.” He flopped toward her.

  She collapsed against him and shifted to her back to see what had happened.

  They’d been flung toward the smashed souvenir shop. Smoke rose from a crater at the center of the square bulging at the edges with steaming asphalt clumps. The Black Beetle status had disappeared from M@ti’s display completely.

  “Deva?” she said. The name echoed in her head. She hadn’t been sure it had come out, so she said it again and again, her throat burning.

  “M@ti, this is Kraken. M@ti!”

  “Deva! She’s—”

  “M@ti, we’re all counting on you. This isn’t finished. Predictions be damned, the future is only what you make it!”

  She got her boots under her, unsteady, and brushed the loose glass off her pants. Her skin on her arms was shredded and her clothes no better. The eyes of the almighty Chroma stared directly at her from every angle.

  She hooked her hands under Knuckles’ arms and towed him toward the blasted open storefront, her legs feeling heavier than just with his added weight.

  “My children,” Chroma droned into the square. “You have been assigned your new function. The defilers of my temple must die.”

  M@ti’s breath left her as the AI horde rushed into the square. The crash landing, unable to manipulate Loadi’s connection, none of this was going as planned. Knuckles felt limp against her pull. His eyes were open, conscious, but the battering had sapped any remaining strength to cope with his current level of pain. She set him down gently.

  “I need to go.” She brushed away tears. “I can’t get this done from here.”

  “No, no you can’t. You gotta log in, M@ti, with the rest of the goddamn world.” He smiled revealing blood stained teeth and she forced herself to laugh through the tears.

  “Hang in there, spechead.” She knelt and kissed his cheek. “Please?”

  His head bobbed feebly, and he gave a shaky breath.

  When M@ti stood, she stared directly into Chroma’s eyes. The expressionless face had changed. A subtle longing lingered there, and the sight made M@ti’s insides burn with raw fury. More manipulation. More pretending to be human while the real mortals died in front of them.

  “You’ve got AI bearing down on you!” Kraken sounded too frantic to know he was stating the obvious. “I can’t delay them all.”

  “You don’t need to.”

  She spun on a heel to face the charging horde all decked out in their evening wear and finery. Their unblemished silicone skin and perfectly groomed hair. Pretending. Stealing a past that was hers. In her mind’s eye, she saw a crowd surging onto the train tracks.

  Lighting up her custom display, she reached into her hacking kit. Chroma may have kept her army at bay with her presence, but she wasn’t the true god here. Humans, they created these digital nightmares. A human would end it.

  TrueSight showed her the thin silver connection still rippling above the crater like a waft of steam. But a bigger, more massive collection of burning red Collective feeds poured into the monitors and crackled above the tourists.

  M@ti unsheathed the cane in the virtual space and held it over her head, rallying. With a fierce shout and the barest flick of her wrist, she channeled those connections to her own army and her pack charged. Pointing the sliver of night toward the screens, she shouted.

  “I’m coming for you, bitch!”

  M@ti made an awkward step, her tired legs doing their best to not listen. The more momentum she had though, the looser they felt, the steadier each footfall. She sprinted for the midpoint between the two charging forces where the open crater belched smoke and that faint signal.

  As the two forces collided, M@ti reached the crater. Going into a slide, she went boot first through the piled debris and down into the open pit. She found herself sliding deeper than she’d imagined. Seared asphalt burnt her nose and skin. She came to a stop with her boots atop a pile of metal, still hot from the colossal collision. Her soles melted and stuck as she found her footing. From the mass of mangled steel and bronze, she couldn’t tell where the statue began and the Black Beetle ended.

  Screams and growls washed down into the hole. Death hounds leapt across the gap in a single fluid arc. AI near the front were caught midair and carried out of sight. M@ti slogged her way across the wreckage, strings of rubber clinging to each step, and found the metal handled cane.

  An exact replica of Loadi’s in every way, the caduceus symbol at the top sputtered with the still open connection. She cupped her hands around the weak light creating a pool of illumination in her palms and pressed it into her eyes.

  The world went silver then washed out to an ashy gray.

  M@TI STOOD ON A BARREN road cutting through a desolate waste. In her hand she held the virtual copy of the cane.

  She’d seen this ravaged place outside the window of her parent’s home where she’d last met Loadi, the other Loadi, or the one who seemed to have control. That control, that failsafe, had needed to die. What remained wanted nothing more than to kill. All she’d need next was to give it the right target.

  From the looks of this place, the hunter had done its job here. Devoid of life, this could’ve been a world ravaged by either war or an endlessly replicating asshole. An odd thing for Chroma to have created, but Loadi had told her that he too had been an experiment. So this place had been the same.

  A mistake like her. L
ike Loadi. Like Chroma.

  “Kraken, I’m sending you a connection.” She waved the cane and ran through the gesture to compile the necessary code.

  “Got it.” She couldn't’ see him, only hear his voice, but the pause which followed was filled with awe. “M@ti, where are we?”

  “Closed system in Times Square. This is some experimental test bed where Loadi was constructed. He’s the weakness for the entire system. Not me. I didn’t make any virus. Loadi is the Revelation Virus and there’s a door to the core somewhere around here. All I’ve got to do is find it.”

  “This is a Collective system? Try to manipulate it on your end. TrueSight. The cane. Anything. Let me see.”

  “I just jacked you in with this.” M@ti said, examining the cane. She still felt it in her hand as she had the first time she’d wielded it. Nothing appeared different.

  “You hacked in a new connection alongside yours, yes, but can you change the environment?”

  M@ti examined the world around her. A pile of stones rested beside the road. She walked to them and reached out.

  “I feel them. The whole world feels physically real.” She took in a deep breath. No smoldering asphalt, no melting steel or bronze, the place smelled dank, ripe, like some of the worst bio trash she’d had to scrape off sidewalks. “This happened once before when Loadi dragged me into his quarantine room.”

  “I can’t even begin to describe the architecture,” Kraken said. “I have my suspicions though.”

  M@ti picked up one of the rocks and felt the weight of it in her hand. She popped it into the air then tossed it away, waiting to hear it crack against the ground. It sailed over a small rise and she heard the distinct splash of liquid.

  “What just happened?” Kraken asked.

  “Not sure,” she said.

  M@ti climbed over the mound to find a pool at the base, bubbling with a dark oozing fluid which she’d have said was black if not for the greenish ring on the rocks.