Absorption: Phase 03 (The Eighteenth Shadow)

by Grafton, Jon Lee

  10:01 pm – Ten Hours One Minute After Event.

  “Come to me, Kitters,” Slopes called. “Papa needs his soft kitty.”

  Does a cyborg roll its eyes if a human doesn’t see it happen?

  This was a mystery to which only Mrs. Kitters knew the answer. The luxuriant Burmese cyborg pounced adroitly to the ground and traipsed over, leaping into Slope’s thin, crumb-ridden lap. Mrs. Kitters lay down and let the gangling man pet her, purring halfheartedly to get the job done.

  “That’s a good girl,” said the detective.

  He felt more secure with Kitters’ silky BIOSKIN© beneath his fingertips.

  Slopes let his mind wander back to the issue at hand.

  Could I face an ethics committee?

  The thought made his kneecaps itch.

  Feeling hungry and unsettled, he shooed Mrs. Kitters off, “Okay, back to your spot. The local stories are projecting.”

  Mrs. Kitters was on top of the purple La-Z-Boy couch again within seconds and immediately set to cleaning herself, back turned to Slopes.

  The detective huffed, “Computer, Journal World Live – holovision.”

  “On screen,” said the ceiling com in the voice of a frightened child.

  The living room holovision flashed to life with Martin Wringle’s quaffed hair and tan face positioned beside the somber and despicable Sheriff Azarov. They stood before two Crown Victoria Hov1100’s on a dark stretch of county hovroad. The LED rollers on the sheriff’s hovcars cast dramatic colors over the black countryside.

  Martin Wringle’s breath steamed as he spoke to the camera, “Good evening, Lawrence. I’m here with Interim Sheriff, Camilla Azarov, who survived a battle at what some in the community have rumored was an alcohol lab of unprecedented scale. Sheriff Azarov, we’ve had unconfirmed verbal reports of particle fire, combat Fidos, some without BIOSKIN© wraps.” Wringle inclined his head, “In response, The Office of the Architect has declared martial law and authorized random biochem tests for alcohol across all citizen combuds in the state of Kansas for the next 24 hours. In a moment, sheriff, we’ll hear from local privacy rights advocates, but first…”

  The doorbell rang.

  Protein pizza! thought Slopes, blinking and muting the holovision.

  He swiped his holotab and checked the sidewalk security node. He had requested a human pizza courier for accountability purposes. His beady eyes searched for weapons, anything out of the ordinary. There wasn’t. The display blinked, but just showed the top of the delivery pilot’s head with platinum blonde hair sticking out from under a standard courier’s cap, ID green. Slopes turned his eyes back to enjoying the visage of the interim sheriff in her moment of media misery.

  Several seconds passed. Slopes realized no one had entered. At least no one human.

  Did they send a drone after all?

  His holovision screen flickered, as if timed with the thought, and the news stream disappeared. A moment later it was replaced by the glaring face of the Architect. Slopes grasped his throat in reflexive terror, but the punishing choking he had come to expect did not start. The old man simply flicked his blazing orange eyes at a point over Slopes’ shoulder.

  Slopes unfurled, slowly, uncomfortably twisting his bones towards the apartment door and hissed, “Kitters! Get away from it!”

  The delivery pilot was nowhere to be seen. Mrs. Kitters was perched on the armrest of the purple La-Z-Boy, tail rhythmically swooshing back and forth, locked in eye contact with a small gray dog.

  Playing a fool won’t save you now.

  It was a blue-eyed Coyote.

  Coyote One tilted her head, processing an internal directive, exe.killlist_01_Slope_Dennis_9_months_hiding_02_Fossbender_Marlene. She then retrained her focus on the Felix.

  That borg is hacking my Kitters! thought Slopes.

  Mrs. Kitters’ twitched robotically twice as she rebooted, then she jumped to the floor and trotted over beside the Coyote. The Burmese Felix turned and sat, yellow vidorbs gazing back at Slopes with the regal indifference only a free cat can truly muster.

  Coyote One took a step closer and snarled, baring her metal teeth, bracing to attack.

  Slopes looked at the holovision with alarm, thinking aloud so the old man would hear, I tried to tell you! I’ve been such a loyal cow. I’ve worked for you so long!

  Richard Laelius Abner’s face smiled wickedly back, relishing the moment before he said, “I came here to punish you myself, Dennis. But it appears these minions of the black shall have that final joy. Don’t you see? No matter what you do, no matter how you die, my knowledge has always been yours.”

  Somewhere West of Salina, Kansas

  William sat alone at the green formica kitchen table, staring at an unlit cigarette, waiting. A surgical bot had stabilized Hugo, tending to him in a first floor bedroom become makeshift ICU. He remained unconscious. Dorothy and her mother, Marjel, had settled in upstairs after a few whiskies to calm the nerves. Goran built a palette bed for he and Cat in the root cellar. The aged farmhouse was finally silent. It had been a day of loss and weeping, a day of screams. A day of blunted sadness that only time itself could further dull. Now just the song of nightbirds blew through open windows from across the prairie.

  William’s father in law had walked in from the garage earlier to talk it all through with him.

  “I needs hear it again, son,” the stout, old fellow had said warmly. “I’ve got a tin of indica kief I been saving. We’ll tilt some whiskeys too, if you’d like?”

  William had liked.

  Leonard Nichols was a solid man, wizened by the Saline County wind and the rough grit ethos of a 21st century, North American farmer. Indica was his crop, the sun and rain and soil his tools. His sparkling blue eyes and white beard owned a thousand stories between them.

  After Leonard had heard his fill of the tale, he said only that he had something to show William, later, outside. Then he disappeared towards the barn. William realized he was getting soft. He did not mind the elder Nichols’ company. William swirled the remaining whiskey in his jar and touched the bandage over his blinded eye. His good eye studied the amber tone of the liquid drug as the light shown through the mason, the yellow hue reminding him of a paling dream, something he couldn’t bring with him.

  His holotab suddenly vibrated. He turned it over, hoping. A small, animated hologram of Dax’s coy face projected in one corner, then the avatar vanished and was replaced by a character file. William stroked his sideburns, put the mason of liquor down, sat forward on his elbows and read.

  William, dear friend, you can stop waiting. I am dead. Or at least no longer living in the strictest sense of the word. I fear Tara has claimed the same fate, though for some the condition doesn’t always take. Do you know what I mean? If not, you will know soon enough.

  It is Saturday morning October 16, 2082 4:47 am. Well past time you knew the truth.

  You believe you are in hiding at the moment, awaiting transit to a final destination. The Israeli is a man of few words. To tell you was not his job. You are already at Secondcity. Dorothy does not know, only Leonard and Marjel. They have been waiting patiently. That is what parents do. The Nichols Farm has all new infrastructure, deep aquifer beneath this land. Quad fractionating columns, dual dolphins piloting a Pasterski class mainframe.

  I could go on for hours.

  You know this.

  Hah!

  Virgil Benedict has unknowingly closed the noose too soon. War is what remains. Your part? Make the booze. This thing we do, we do for freedom. We do it so our conscience may not bear the horrid weight of conformity. We do it because civil disobedience is the patriotic duty of every North American confronted with an unjust law.

  The dolphins are scheduled to arrive tomorrow and the Israeli will complete reactor ignition within two days. Once the dolphins spool, there is a program on the mainframe named Demigod. Only they can access it.

  Once executed, Demigod will scan the combud biodata of any citizen within a
half kilom of any Secondcity device. Demigod has one purpose, to locate your lost brother. You must trust that I chose the location of Secondcity for a variety of reasons.

  I hope the morning was not too hard? What else did we lose this day? The farm sleeps now, barely, but soon you all shall wake to a very different world.

  And yes, your father in law does have something to show you. Indeed he does.

  Dax

  William placed the holotab face down on the kitchen table. He stood with a sigh and picked up the cigarette. He walked outside, boots and tired steps heavy over the tiles. The hinges on the wooden screen door creaked as he shut it, slow so it wouldn’t slam. He fired the cigarette and stepped into the driveway that ran between the Nichols’ house and detached garage. Overhead, the Flint Hills stars plotted their meager course across the black sea of night. Tallgrass and rolling farmland stretched in every direction. Crickets chimed like out of tune music boxes and somewhere a whippoorwill called mournfully thrice.

  That’s when William felt them approaching.

  He docked the smoke to the corner of his lips and held out his hands. From the impossible darkness, six Rottweilers materialized, followed shortly by Leonard Nichols who wore a broad smile across his white, grizzled face. The dogs encircled William, eagerly wagging bobbed tails, panting and curious, yet instantly familiar.

  William looked up at his father in law and exhaled a smooth stream of smoke, “I should have known.”

  “Yes. You should have,” said the old farmer with a chuckle. “For a cyborg telepath, you ain’t so bright, Bill.”

  The nearest Rottie licked his skin. The synthetic tongue was as rough as coarse sandpaper, though warm. Its brown eyes flashed to crimson and William Angevine let the corner of his mouth turn towards the sky.

  Wikipedia.holo Excerpt (Last Updated 2061.11.13) Regarding the Mid-Century Kansas Agroeconomics and a Shifting Heartland Culture: …in conclusion, we see a state vastly transformed in less than a decade. 1.9 Day drove tens of millions of Californians into the heart of the Midwest, an unprecedented population shift, and the first in modern history instigated by environmental genocide. Overnight, Kansas became the epicenter of the tech industry in fields ranging from nuclear genetics to cyborg…

  Epilogue

  November 14, 2086. Four Years One Month After Event.

  The thin man stepped from the hovtruck’s running board, boots sinking into mud as soon as he left the gravel shoulder of the hovroad. The black dogs jumped out after him and tore across the winter field. They yipped playfully and taunted their big sisters, bobbed tails wagging with excitement. The large silver and black cyborgs, each the size of a hovsedan, turned their heads as the thin man approached. One grunted affectionately. He strode towards them swiftly.

  The AK9MIL DOGS units flanked the boy, keeping him stashed protectively between them. The young man sat cross-legged in the mud looking exhausted, but he showed no fear. He kept his head up, eyes wary and observant. He looked like a toy doll between his gigantic cyborg captors. Dirty blonde hair fell down his face in curls now that the HUD goggles had been stripped off. The mangled, flattened remains of two civilian lightning rifles lay in the dirt to one side.

  GUNSHEYE had been chewing mud to clean off as much of the CNED director’s blood as possible. The man’s legs and torso had been playfully tossed in either direction and buried under meters of worm-rich soil.

  Leave no trace but the wind.

  The boy eyed the thin man carefully as he approached, turning his head as though listening to music only he could hear. The man came closer, pulled out his holotab and again studied the small text projection, Demigod 96.7% probability.

  The thin man walked up and stood in front of the boy, “Get on your feet.”

  The boy was nearly as tall. His long, blonde curls were wet and matted. He shook some with the cold but was otherwise neither arrogant nor cowed. The thin man nodded at one of the Rottweilers to produce a little TOHO heat. The boy’s lower lip began to shimmer as the particle weapon emerged from the animal’s throat and warmed the air.

  “I’m sorry about… your father,” the thin man said, pursing his lips, tipping the brim of his cowboy hat.

  The boy sniffled but kept his chin up, “It’s… it’s not surprising. He wasn’t a good person.” His eyes were big and black, like the eyes of a woman the thin man had once known. The boy went on, “You know he wasn’t my father. It’s okay. You don’t have to pretend.”

  The thin man nodded but gave no other reaction.

  He extended his hand towards the waiting hovtruck, “You probably have a lot of questions. We should get out of the field. This land belongs to my family. My name is…”

  “William,” said the boy, a grin crossing his freckled face. “You’re William Angevine, my brother. My name is…”

  “Saxon,” said the thin man. “Your name is Saxon Angevine.”

  “That’s right,” the boy smiled, again cocking his head as though listening to distant music, then said, “I don’t know. I don’t know who the Prophet is. But I want to find her too. She’s the lady from my dreams.”

  Fragmented Remains from the Cloud Diary of Daxane Julius Abner – January 3, 2081 – One Year Nine Months Before Event.

  “…yet something observable, now changed. She still sees something in the sheriff’s IT driver. Tara wonders if she can be trusted, which means she can’t be. A poem before I go.

  Come and wrap your love around my sorrow

  Tonight I’m living like the sun won’t ever rise

  Birds and lies hide behind dying eyes

  I keep hearing that last line in the interim. Is it just me? I feel good about the future. If you can’t trust a dolphin, then… UNSCHEDULED HARDWARE DESTRUCT / DATA COMPROMISE / INITIATE BACKUP.EXE FOR REINTEGRATION FORMA… LOSS. LOSS. LOS.”

  Chapter 4.1 – Who Are You?

  Salina, Kansas – October 23, 2082 – Four Years Two Months Before Consciousness.

  Hugo Velasquez awoke to find himself restrained. He opened his eyes slowly, fading into awareness. Two bedside lamps burned with light on end tables to either side of him.

  A surgical droid with a face composed of matte black metal leaned over his line of sight, its LED vocal array illuminating as it spoke androgynously, “Vital signs are stable. Plasma transfer six has been accepted and processed. MRI codes are green and frontal cortex relays are standardizing. This patient should be capable of speech within sixty seconds.”

  The droid stepped backwards, aligning itself with a wireless charging sphere on the wall, and then went dormant. The droid wasn’t speaking to Hugo. He looked around the room, memorizing details by habit, though he already knew where he was. His arm was gone, but he felt no pain. He would only have one chance.

  Unless Dax or Tara survived. I won’t have the strength to resist them.

  The walls were painted eggshell blue and the ceiling white, accented with crown molding. Fallow fields of recently harvested indica lay dormant for winter outside the windows. He couldn’t see the floors, but he knew they were hardwood. He had slept in this room before. And he knew the man sitting at the end of his bed by the lingering smell of his cigarettes.

  Hugo looked mournfully at the stump the CNED sniper had left him for an arm, then made eye contact with the man as he assumed character and finally spoke, “Que lástima, Meester Bill… ees like I remeember, my arm, eets gone!” Hugo brought well-practiced crocodile tears to his eyes, waiting until one rolled down his stubbled, sorrel cheek, then he raised his black bushy eyebrows innocently, “Ees dees d’ Seecond-ceety? Ess Dax alive?” He spoke the broken English softly.

  William Angevine’s face was lean, his pale skin warmed only by his stubbled sideburns and a five-day whiskered chin. A black patch covered his left eye, giving him the look of a prairie pirate lost at sea who had donned a tattered straw cowboy hat found floating upon the waves. His good eye was iceberg blue, still and fixed; his face, expressionless.

  At last, William
blinked.

  A massive black Rottweiler that had been laying on the floor, out of Hugo’s view, rose up to all fours and flexed its powerful BIOSKIN© muscles. The animal fixed its gaze on Hugo and growled quietly, identically mimicking the mild voicing of an organic dog’s warning. Yet Hugo could hear the difference. He chilled. For the growl also carried the unique alien echo of cyborg fury. This animal was psycho-anatomically female. Her warning resonated supernaturally off the bedroom walls. Hugo knew the sound well, an unmistakable threat. All it took was a thought from William. Hugo would be dead before his eyes had registered the Rottweiler’s motion. The glossy, black borg snarled half-hardheartedly a final time and at last sat obediently beside her tether.

  Hugo continued to smile, “Ees one of d’ new perros, eh? Beeg? Seegfreed class, same no?”

  William tilted his head. The Rottweiler tilted its head also, at the same speed and angle.

  “What hapeeen to your eye, Beel? Last deeng I’s rememeember, I was…”

  “I don’t wanna have to kill you, Hugo,” interrupted William. His voice was soft and direct, the southern drawl pronounced, “But you know I will.” He reached up and scratched his sideburns, then put his hand on the head of the cyborg beside him, “This here’s Beyla. Our new dolphins aren’t quite so formal as Joan, so we been using old school designations. Beyla’s got two sisters, three brothers. All SIEGFRIED units, but Andromeda class, so you’re damn near spittin’ on the bullseye.” William’s blue eye seemed to deepen and cool as he continued talking casually, “Andromeda units can fire pinpointed plasma, just by opening their jaws a fraction. Heat bubbles, synthetic diamond nanoarmor, vidorb synchronized holoflage projection, instinctual response times clocking 1/1000th of a second. They can also rapid fire 540 light rounds a minute under full canon deployment.” William slapped his knee, “But damn, don’t let me go on all day talkin’ shop!” He raised the eyebrow above his good eye, “You didn’t save him in the end. Dax still died. Tara too. No one’s left who can read your mind.”