Dream Static

by Robert S. Wilson

  Dream Static

  Robert S. Wilson

  Dream Static

  First Kindle Edition

  Copyright © 2017 Robert S. Wilson

  All rights reserved.

  for Zoey, my beautiful and amazing granddaughter

  Before…

  Chapter 1

  Soft neon hues of sienna, teal, and cherry red stretched and intermingled between a hundred towering yellow-dotted structures, their shadows enveloping every inch of the city in a sort of exponential void. Angela walked along the rain-drenched sidewalk clutching her umbrella close to her chest. A ghostly beam of light reached down from the top of some industrial monolith. Its light searched aimlessly in the unending sea of pedestrians and traffic and glowing billboards of Coca-Cola, an old Noah Masterson campaign ad, and the latest synaptic patches promising eternal life.

  Her vision filled with transparent text and image notifications as the Mind-fi signal reasserted itself into her Synapath. The usual lag made her dizzy as the day’s information blasted into her cerebral cortex.

  She stood staring into space, waiting for the lag to catch up and the dropping sensation in her stomach to slow. When she felt like she could walk again without falling on her face, Angela started toward the street where the Autocab sat waiting.

  Damn it. Has it really been a year since my last backup? Angela sighed. Every year, like clockwork, when her annual synaptic backup procedure came along, some primal part of her psyche would come alive and her nerves would set on edge. It wasn't like it was painful or anything. More the sense of enclosure than anything. Angela pushed back the thought as Jordan’s smiling face appeared in the back passenger window of the Autocab. She smiled in return, hoping she’d have the strength to keep smiling when the subject of her appointment came up.

  She was still so disoriented when she walked up to the cab, she almost didn't notice the man standing there watching her. When she did, she instantly recognized him.

  "Representative Barton?" She stole a glance at Jordan and he winked in return from inside the cab.

  James Barton reached out and the two shook hands. "Miss Bane, I hope you don't mind, I wanted to congratulate you on such a fantastic job today. I tried to get your attention in the courtroom but those hungry reporters were circling like vultures."

  Angela laughed. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see you."

  "No, no, it's not your fault. Who could blame them? You were the star of the show in there." He beamed.

  "Well, I was just about to head out, do you want to share a cab with us or..."

  Barton waved at Jordan then looked back at Angela and shook his head. "No, I just wanted to congratulate you. I have my own ride, but thanks." He signaled toward the parking garage down the street.

  "I heard about your extended CO2 bill, Mr. Barton. I really hope it passes. We need more people in office like you working on real solutions."

  "I appreciate you saying so, Miss Bane. That means a lot coming from someone who's doing so much phenomenal environmental work themselves. You take care, okay?"

  Angela nodded and opened the Autocab door. “You too, Mr. Barton.” He turned and started up the street. She stood there smiling, watching him go. She was just about to get in the cab when a deafening boom erupted from the court building and a gust of pressure shoved her violently into the car.

  Ash and dust clouded around the vehicle as Jordan scrambled to check Angela’s head. “You’re bleeding.” Beneath some all-encompassing drone of ringing, his voice was distant, foggy.

  “I’m okay.” Her own voice came out quiet, muffled. “Oh my God!” She jumped up from the seat and pushed her way past the car door. Jordan yelled out for her, but she couldn’t make out the words as she ran toward the last place she had seen Representative Barton. “Mr. Barton!” The air was thick with dust and debris raining down in a tan and muddy cacophony like some unnatural sandstorm. Sirens and random voices screamed out from some other world. “Mr. Barton!” Her feet struck something on the ground and she toppled over.

  She rolled to her knees and there he lay, on the sidewalk, head broken and bleeding and still. Angela reached over and put out her hand to check his pulse. “Someone please! Call an ambulance!”

  ***

  The dreadful silence inside the cab seemed to stretch on forever. Angela stared out the window, watching the buildings flash by blur after blur. Neither she nor Jordan had spoken a word since they’d left the hospital. Representative James Barton was in critical but stable condition, his skull having barely protected his brain from the onslaught of the explosion.

  Angela mentally sifted through her email tabs floating translucently before her, framed by the back of the dark blue front passenger seat.

  Lucas Dawson 6:33pm

  Re: Stuff - Congrats on the win! Listen, if you’ve got some time this Saturday, I wanted to talk to you about…

  Digital Eco 5:52pm

  Time to Renew! - It’s that time of the year again. Time to renew your beloved subscription to the best source o…

  Immortal Coil Laboratories 12:47pm

  Your Synaptic Backup Procedure: things to be prepared for - Dear Ms. Bane, We here at Immortal Coil Labs would like…

  She reached out and squeezed Jordan’s hand. “I…”

  Jordan squeezed back. “There’s no way you could’ve known.”

  “I know. It’s just… I had talked myself out of going for my backup. I could have…”

  Jordan pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her.

  “I’m sorry. I know how much it means to you. I just get so nervous.”

  “I know. It’s dreadful, but if anything ever happened to you…” His words hung heavy in the stale air of the cab.

  She looked up at him, wanting desperately to tell him everything. Instead she kissed him long and full on the lips. “After tonight… seeing Barton lying there covered in dust and blood. I realized just how selfish I was being. I’ll call first thing in the morning and confirm my appointment.”

  “Good. Tell, you what. I’ll take the day off and keep you company, okay?”

  “Yeah. That would be nice.”

  She let her head sink into his chest. The weight of what had happened just hours earlier pushed down on her again. They sat huddled together in silence as street lights and signs stretched by like glowing multi-colored liquids streaming together and painting each previous moment onto a disappearing tapestry.

  Chapter 2

  Angela stepped through the front entrance of Immortal Coil Laboratories. The interior was a simple hallway with posters along the walls showing nothing but happy faces in every size, age, sex, and ethnicity. Families huddled together, hands clasped. Young couples, arms draped around each other in loving embrace. Parents, gay and straight, walking hand in hand with little boys and girls in between them. It was all very comforting even if Angela’s cynical side was near to vomiting.

  She thought about all those people who hadn’t been quite as lucky as James Barton. Thirty-seven dead. And no one knew why. At the end of the hallway, the elevator doors stood motionless, Angela’s face reflected in their silver surfaces, a line of darkness slicing through the middle of her head.

  ***

  In the operating room, Jordan smiled down at Angela, his head floating just above her. Her limbs were already starting to feel numb and soon all sensory input would cease into a deep silent darkness where only her busy mind remained. This was the part that she feared and hated most. The complete lack of any sight, sound, or physical sensation. It was like being a ghost damned to the deepest darkest limbo. And she never failed to panic, in that long moment of nothingness, that it would never cease and she'd be trapped forever.

  Jordan took her trembling hand and kissed it. "It's okay,
honey. It'll all be over in no time. You'll see." His smile was comforting but not quite enough to hold back the wall of pressure pushing against her heart. For Barton, for all those poor families who lost someone. Her own fear intermingled with the dread of recent events and just like that everything started fading. She struggled to keep feeling Jordan’s hand pressed against hers.

  The doctor's deep voice echoed from a million miles away speaking through one long tunnel into her ear, "Everything will go a little dark for a bit now, Miss Bane. There's nothing to worry about. This is perfectly normal."

  His words echoed off the edge of the universe and faded into reverberations like clouds floating on the heels of a deadly storm.

  ***

  The void stretched on forever.

  Black as a starless night and free of sound or shape.

  How panic could become so real, so culpable in such a senseless state was inconceivable to Angela. And yet it was all she was. Burning, screaming, uncontrollable panic. Every horror, possible or impossible, ran through her mind in tandem. An error in the machinery or some other slip up during the procedure. The building catching fire. Maybe a plane would crash into the room where her brain lay bare. Surely, some giant comet would strike the sky and send the Earth tumbling out of orbit around the sun. Whatever terrible thing flashed into her psyche blew up beyond proportion and before long she was sure it was all happening right now and she would lie there completely helpless to stop it.

  She fought for control of herself, head bursting up from an ocean of mental anguish. Please, Angie, please stop! She tried to picture Jordan's face smiling at her. She could almost see it but so much blackness surrounded her that she wasn't sure there was a way through. Please. She concentrated all her focus on the love of her life and slowly small details began to stretch out and form into some semblance of his face. The lines of his cheek first. Then the short stubble of hair under his bottom lip. The furrow of his brow and the deep blue of his eyes.

  Before long he stood before her, hand held out and smiling. The terror lost hold some and she took a deep mental breath. How could she have ever thought she could live without him? Angela began picturing her body in this previously formless void. First, vague featureless limbs appeared. Then came a torso and a sense of being, mostly alien, but at least somewhat akin to a sense of self. She had focused so much attention on trying to envision both Jordan and herself that the mental pressure had managed to leak away. Now, all she could feel was the sinking pull of creativity. A feeling she nearly didn't recognize at first. One she hadn't felt in probably twenty years back when she was a shy teenage girl with a longing to write poetry and lyrics and stories.

  She dove into the pleasure of it. The sheer mental tingle of making something from nothing was just as exhilarating as it had been so many years ago and she couldn't help but wonder why she'd ever stopped writing. Then just as quickly she wished she hadn't wondered at all as memories erupted around her, filling the void and vaporizing every bit of the mental constructs she'd fought so hard to create.

  She was fourteen again and sitting in class, arms huddled together over the paper she was writing on. Without warning, Mr. Kensington swooped up behind her and ripped the sheet of paper from under her arms.

  "What's this, Miss Bane?"

  "Um... I..."

  "Well, looky here, class. Angie Bane fancies herself a poet."

  The entire classroom of eyes bore into her. She could feel her face burning in deep red crimson.

  Mr. Kensington giggled for a moment, looking from the paper back at her and then put his hand to his mouth and gave a fake exaggerated cough and began to read in a mocking high-pitched squeal of a voice.

  "I long with yearning for your kiss.

  "I'm warm and burning from the bliss.

  "My sweet darling tempest, will you weather the storm for me and only me?

  "Oh, Victor, darling, will you tether your soul to me and only me?"

  The class exploded with laughter and Angela ran for the door, tears blurring her path to get there. And as she turned the handle to leave the room, Victor Morgan's voice rose above the rest of the class. "Oh my God, no way!" His words echoed around her body, circling and mocking her.

  Then more memories peeled away into one another like slides in some three dimensional viewfinder. Each one more and more painful. And when they were all spent, she found herself back in that empty void and, just like none of it had ever happened, she was all alone again and so afraid.

  After…

  Chapter 3

  A burst of light explodes into the void, tearing piece after piece of Angela’s reality. Flashes of blurry white erupt from above her. Faces, mouths covered over with blue masks, hover and disappear at random between blinding flashes of light and dark emptiness flitting back and forth. Voices mumble and garble into gibberish then replay in reverse. A single scream penetrates all of reality from some distant place beyond time and space. Thick gray membranous tissue stretches over everything and explodes, blood splattering over walls and ceilings and dripping down into her face.

  Varicose veins grow out of the world and reach across her field of vision. Then those faces return and so do their voices. Words stop stretching and warbling and begin to run together into sentences that make more and more sense.

  "...not responding..."

  "...electric impulse ready..."

  "...or else we'll have a goddamn Synaptic Redundancy on our hands..."

  "...I'm trying, Doctor, but cranial stability is too low..."

  "We've got a live one!"

  "...in there, Miss Bane? Can you hear me?"

  "Blink if you can hear me."

  Angela concentrates all her being on her eyelids, pulling with every ounce of strength she can. Slowly, the world around her closes away between dark oval slits then returns.

  "We've got contact!"

  A few voices sigh in relief.

  "Miss Bane, I'm afraid we're going to have to put you under again. You've been the victim of a crime and... well, we've had to make use of your most recent backup to Resuscitate you."

  Panic once again grips hold of Angela and she lets out a long loud moan.

  "It's okay, sweetie, everything will be just fine."

  The world around Angela begins to fade again.

  Those long waves of water between her and reality stretch on and on as voices burst into being in between flashes of static.

  "… really think you should have lied …”

  Flash.

  “… we don't even know if her body can handle …"

  "What do you want me to … ”—flash—“… Rick?”—flash—“Uh, Miss…”—flash—“I'm sorry…”—flash—“… twenty-two years since someone put enough bullets”—flash—“… fucking body”—flash—“… to rip you in half? We've never brought”—flash—“… back like this before.”

  Reality reasserts itself for a moment.

  “If she survives, she'll be the first."

  "And if she doesn't...

  "She'll sure as shit be the last."

  Static erupts all around Angela, erodes everything away.

  ***

  The outside world creeps into view in bright blinding contrast to the dark unconscious state Angela has been cocooned in. She lies in an incline. Beyond the glow of phantom artifacts in her vision, white sterile concrete walls stand surrounding her. Bland colors decorate everything from the furniture to the tiles on the floor to the sheets on her bed. Tubes stretch out from her face and spread along her chest and then tangle their way toward the machines to her left.

  The room is empty save for Angela and the stale Stepford vibe within it. Her throat hurts when she tries to swallow and when she doesn't the compulsion to do so is nearly as discomforting. She needs a drink of water. She tries to connect to the local Mind-fi hub to call a nurse but nothing happens.

  Her Synapath is silent.

  She finds a remote control and presses the Nurse button then rests her head back a
gainst her pillow.

  A short moment later, a tall woman with sandy blonde hair tied in a sloppy knot trots into the room all smiles and cheer. "Hello, Miss Bane! How can I help you?"

  Angela opens her mouth and tries to speak but her vocal cords clench as if a boot is pressed against them and nothing comes out but low gravely scrapes of sound.

  "Oh, I'm sorry, Miss Bane, I almost forgot. Although we were able to stimulate some of your muscles from their previous atrophied state, some, like your vocal chords, are still going to take some time and therapy to return. I'm afraid, for now, until you've been assigned a physical therapist, you'll need to communicate with us through your Mind-fi hardware."

  Angela mouths the words, "I tried."

  "Oh, I'm so sorry, Miss Bane, I'm such a dunce sometimes, I must have forgotten to turn it back on." She walks over behind Angela's bed and a tingle goes up Angela's spine and then a bright sparkle flashes in her vision. Angela nods, closes her eyes in concentration. The Mind-fi interface appears transfixed over the inside of her eyelids. She opens her eyes and it remains there, half transparent over her field of vision. She writes her message and then sends it. Your message to ICL_436 has been sent!

  The nurse erupts with animation. "Yes, you can have some water, though you'll have to be careful to sip slowly through your straw. Let me get that for you real quick. And of course as soon as the doctor is ready to do his rounds, he'll be able to go over anything you'll need to know."

  She picks up a tan pitcher and pours a cup of water. Angela remembers the last haze of words that floated into her mind just before she went under. Twenty-two years... Her mind scrambles to write out another message and then sends it.

  "Yes, Miss Bane, I'm afraid it has been that long now since the, uh... Since you... Twenty-two years, two months, and seventeen days. I'm sorry, I don't know much more than that but, again, I assure you..."