Absorption: Phase 03 (The Eighteenth Shadow)

by Grafton, Jon Lee

  Hugo swallowed, trying the accommodating smile one last time, “Beel, I dunno what…”

  The Rottweiler snarled again as William looked back at Hugo, “Tara heard you in the forest. She pushed the thought into my mind the last time I saw her. Dorothy and I heard you when you were unconscious. Twice. You don’t speak with an accent. We know that.” William stood to his full height and calmly walked to the edge of the bed, the heels of his cowboy boots clacking loudly over the floor boards as he pointed his finger at Hugo, “So here’s the real deal, mescalero. Or whatever yippie ki yay bullshit nickname you wanna try and float my way, dude. If you’re a white mole, tell me now. You’ll die fast and clean. But if you ain’t shoveling goods for the humdroids? And since you did try to save Dax’s life out there? Out of respect for the friendship I had, with the person you’re clearly not, I’m gonna sit here and let you explain yourself.” He returned to the chair and looked straight ahead, “You know I can’t read minds. I can smell horseshit, though. So if the next words out of your mouth aren’t in perfect, Dogdamn English, you die anyhow.” William drew a cigarette from a tin box, and the Rottweiler beside him barely opened its mouth, flash illuminating its tip. William blew the smoke out his nostrils and leaned forward, elbows on his knees and asked, “So who the hell are you, Hugo?”

  Secondcity Cloud Diary – Admin, Dorothy_01: December 24, 2082.

  “It’s Christmas. Mom and dad have come up from their cabin down the hovroad. Dax built that for them, so of course it’s quite posh. Dax knew all along, and of course Leonard and Marjel have known for years. I didn’t realize they were in so deep. There is, to use Tara’s favorite adjective, a fucking resistance. Looking back now, I should have known. Anyhow, the ’rents are downstairs having whiskey eggnog with William and Goran. The tree is trimmed, bright lights, dogs laying about, old fashioned wood fire going. Dad’s got the antique record player spinning, some old-time Kansas City jazz called OJT. And I’m feeling none of it.

  All I can think about is Tara. I loved her. I may have been in love with her. When they died, I felt it. Like two chunks of my gut being ripped out. Nothing has ever hurt so much. I feel like nothing can ever hurt me again. I am so furious! Bill has been patient, steady. He now has the cybernetic eye, installed on-site by a black market nanosurgeon. A human vidorb. It helps him with telemetry. I hate it when it goes black. It reminds me of a borg spooling down.

  Okay, sorry. I know this is supposed to be about Secondcity. William Angevine, my husband. How much do I have to write here? I’ll try and stick to the basics. All we have are Dax’s fragments – and to this day we make our choices based upon that man’s will. William and I have thrown ourselves into it. 300,000 liter monthly output. We have two dolphins now, a bonded couple named Ruben and Cherise, who are definitely not like Joan at all. There are six Rottweilers, all SIEGFRIED class, but Mark IV gen. Too many tech compliments over the prior series for me to get into right now. Related; more we did not know – Joan uploaded the experiential memory algorithms of the original Rottweilers to the current units. It’s weird. The Secondcity units have unique personalities. But when I look into the eyes of the male named Odin, I swear I can see our sweet SIEGFRIED looking back at me. There’s three females and three males. The female units are more advanced, enhanced with vidorbs that can project holoflage. What else? Gunsheye and Fat Girl are our new THOR class borgs. Littermates, so to speak. My family farm is way more rural than Firstcity was, so we let the big dogs up from the warehouse at night. It is interesting how wary they are, conscious of their own exposed nature. They like to trot down the driveway to the hovroad and scan the wind, but will soon return to the barn and lay together in a pile of hay, watching the smaller borgs play. William says they want BIOSKIN©. They tell him this. However it is they tell him things. I think everyone at Secondcity wants something they can’t have.

  The transports have been going on schedule. With no courtezan, we now send three Rottweilers with the shipments. This allows Ruben and Cherise a pure, fat stream to any device within a kilometer. Nothing has gotten even close to us yet. The dolphins fuse their minds, into what I believe is basically a cognitive RAID array, each pulling pure light from the Pasterski’s dual cores. Together, they are able to blind any traffic between GEODRONE© master com and their SKOUT units, hacking hundreds of targets simultaneously. It’s as if the hovtruck is invisible from the county hovroad all the way to Manhattan. The distance is shorter; also, we float east. Our old distributor, Earl King, is thrilled to have us back, so let the digidollars rain.

  There’s more, so much more. But I can’t. I’m sorry, but damn, shit, bitch, hell! That’s what I really want to say. Dax, I feel like I’m apologizing to you. Why couldn’t you have just told us? No one else wanted to keep the Secondcity diary. It’s not like Bill’s gonna express his feelings in writing. Is it even supposed to be about how I feel? None of it’s about me! This is my first entry, over two months since we spooled the Hadassa cores and brought the supercomputer onstream, and I’ve said nothing but the obvious. Maybe some eggnog. Maybe a lot. I’ll say more next time. My hands are shaking. I’m literally crying. I think I need to go down to the target range and blast some shit.”

  Hypatia Five – Israeli Gladiatorial Storage Cell 001 – .4 Kilometers Below the Lunar Surface – December 1, 2086 – Thirty One Days Before Consciousness.

  The Israeli removed the hood shrouding her head, revealing a humanoid cyborg face composed of silver toned metal scales that undulated and moved like the skin of a giant reptile. Her neck was covered in similar, but heavier, plates that scalloped down, increasing in dimension until they disappeared beneath the rough spun cloak covering the remainder of her chassis. The Israeli’s emerald green vidorbs burned resolutely. She stepped to a thick steel door and established ocular contact, pushing a blue spectrum recognition stream into a holoscanner on the wall. The cement hall around her was gray and plain, weakly illuminated by a single overhead LED. The Israeli did not require light to see.

  The ceiling com spoke placidly, “Ocular scan confirmed, Shadow 17.”

  Locking mechanisms deep within the door disengaged and the heavy slab of metal moved laterally on a track, vanishing into the wall. The Israeli stepped inside the cell and the door closed behind her, gears in the walls grinding with a robotic, industrial hum as the magnetic pistons reengaged.

  The cell was four meters wide by six meters long, with a five meter high ceiling. The walls were covered in clean black rubcrete on all sides. A single can light illuminated an oval spot on a polished red cement floor.

  The Israeli tapped her audio receptor, “Initiate total darkness.”

  “Black fractal encryption is now active,” said a voice only she could hear.

  She looked up at the ceiling into the gray and shadow beyond the dangling overhead light, “You can come down now.”

  A smaller figure dropped to the floor, landing in a fluid crouch, looking up from a black hooded face with vidorbs burning a brighter, more mossy shade of green. The smaller figure stood. At only 1.7 meters tall, the cell’s occupant seemed like a dwarf before the hulking Israeli.

  “Don’t make me go dormant again, mother,” said the smaller cyborg in a woman’s voice.

  “Only one more time,” said the Israeli, the deep timbre of her synthetic voice resonating despite the rubcrete surrounding them. “The night before the championship tournament. You’ll have to go dark for 24 hours while the BIOSKIN© grafts to your chassis and we upload…” the Israeli paused, considering her words, “independent recognition.”

  “And then I will be free, mother?”

  “Then you will be… the perfect weapon. You will be a whole being, human, while simultaneously the pinnacle of cybernetic engineering. Remember, only you and one other know my true identity.”

  The small robed figure stood on her toes expectantly and clapped her black palms together.

  The Israeli’s armored face formed the rough approximation of a smile, “Go ahead.
Tell me what you know, pupil.”

  “You are Dr. Samantha Goldstein, biostructural engineer and pioneer of cyborg chassis schematics at Darkpool Laboratories. Present at the collapse of the Coyote Shadow Program, your female consciousness was transferred into an anatomically male substructure in an effort to save your life, your memories. This was the final act of Dr. Marvin Adler before he was murdered. In 2059 you created the first titanalum alloy capable of bionic tissue grafting and in 2060 y…”

  The Israeli held up a hand, calling for silence, then asked, “Who am I now?”

  The smaller figure bowed her head, “Now you are the Seventeenth Shadow. Your true identity is wind.”

  “Correct. Assume lotus pose.”

  The small hooded cyborg dropped to the cement floor as though she were a cup of water being poured into the sea. She pulled one ankle over each knee, sat with spine erect and removed her hood. The Israeli joined her, her older, much larger chassis moving more robotically. Once in position, the Israeli studied her pupil’s face. It was composed of billions of nanowoven strands of boron nitride and lonsdaleite that moved like synthetic muscle, perfectly replicating the human template upon which the cyborg was engineered. The same nanowoven, self-repairing muscle covered her entire chassis and was anchored to a titanalum endoskeleton.

  The little cyborg’s nanomuscles convened into a smile and her vidorbs momentarily brightened as she established a stream lock with the Israeli, “I am ready for further questions, mother.”

  The Israeli nodded, “State rudimentary technical specifications, free association.”

  The smaller figure tilted her head and rolled her vidorbs towards the ceiling, “My synthetic consciousness functions on Adler-Goldstein version 69.7118 and is scripted by an octocore, AMD Quantum 13 CPU feeding 40,000 terabytes of RAM across a chassis contoured, diamond graphene motherboard. My power sources are dual Hadron Micro 7 temporal fusion reactors. My chassis is enhanced by an onboard battery of nanosurgical spiders capable of regenerating 136 damaged sectors simultaneously. Assuming Terran gravity, I have a top gallop velocity of 197 kilometers per hour over organic terrain and a theoretical maximum velocity of 259 kilometers per hour across a flat surface.”

  “Are you a horse?” asked the Israeli in her deep, rumbling voice.

  The small female cyborg tilted her head and giggled, “I am not a horse, mother. You know I am not a horse. Why do you ask if I am this Earth mammal? I am cyborg, like you.”

  “Because you are soon to be a woman. And women do not gallop. They run.”

  “Forgive me. I know this. The specific decorum data was uploaded 286 days, three hours, nine minutes and 27 seconds ago.” The small cyborg frowned, “All I have known is this cell, the pit battles, weapons training and you, mother. I do not yet have the standardized algorithms to process these human references. Not without direct drive access.”

  “Soon you will know everything about being human,” said the Israeli. “The woman you are destined to become was quintessentially… human. You are my life’s work. But you belong on Earth.”

  “I do not process this information easily. Will I remember these days also?”

  “How many war cyborgs have you destroyed in the pits?”

  “I have completely deactivated 186 gladiatorial opponents at the highest threat echelon and have rendered another 1,612 less mechanically advanced units inert by ripping apart their chassis components!” said the small borg happily.

  “Exactly my point, student,” nodded the Israeli. “You will remember your training and all pertinent intelligence data sourced across the darkstream over the last four years. Part of us is always borg. You will retain a capacity for true logic, yet you will feel emotion. It is this human mind that shall return to you the most precious of all gifts: a soul.”

  “I want to have a soul,” said the smaller borg, smiling brightly again, lost in thought and staring at the floor.

  “Soon you shall, unit TAD20821016, soon you shall.” The Israeli put her thumbs to her index fingers, forming the jnana mudra, gently lowered the backs of her gray, robotic hands to her knees and asked her pupil, “Tell me, student. Once you have your soul… who will you become?”

  The smaller cyborg mimicked her teacher’s motions. Her own, far more advanced hands moved effortlessly, the black, nanoweave armor shifting like organic skin as she brought her thumb and index fingers together, smoothly fanning the other six digits into perfect symmetric balance. Her vidorbs brightened until the room was filled with a diffused, emerald glow.

  When she looked up at the Israeli, she spoke the words with reverence, “I will become the Eighteenth Shadow.”

  To be continued…

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  An Evolving Glossary of Real Time Terms and Acronyms

  1) 1.9 Day (The San Andreas Geological Disaster of 2041): A massive Southern California earthquake caused by hydraulic fracturing, which kills 1.9% of the antique United States population. Commonly regarded as the unofficial starting point of the Progressive Revolution.

  2) 2.5d: A quasi three dimensional hologram, often paired with a tactile interface on a mobile device such as a holotab. Also used in office monitor applications where a full three dimensional projection is not required.

  2A) Adler Code: The computer programming language developed by Marvin Adler at Darkpool Laboratories, first installed in the Coyote Pack.

  4) AK9MIL DOGS unit: Heavily armored, weaponized fusion powered cyborgs typically the size of a large limousine hovcar. Used only in military applications. These units are not encased in BIOSKIN©.

  5) AK9CIV DOGS unit: Fusion powered cyborgs typically the size of the cloned animal template. The law enforcement canine template is a full size working breed animal, such as a German Shepherd, Rottweiler or Doberman Pinscher. These cyborgs are encased in BIOSKIN© and are visually indistinguishable from their organic counterparts.

  6) Alcovap: Nanosensor designed to detect particles of airborne ethanol disseminated by breathing after one has been drinking alcohol.

  7) Amendment 31: This amendment to the NAUS Constitution banned the non-military use of all carbon based fuels.

  8) Amendment 32: This amendment to the NAUS Constitution (commonly referred to as the “Cage Free Law”) banned Federal agricultural subsidies for ranchers producing commercially processed meat or dairy products.

  9) Amendment 33: This “progressive prohibition” amendment to the NAUS Constitution bans the use of alcohol for all purposes except government research.

  10) Amendment 46: This amendment to the NAUS Constitution requires that all fusion powered cyborgs contain self-destructing code sequences in their operating systems.

  11) Amendment 222: This amendment to the NAUS Constitution requires all military and civilian fusion based cyborgs to be constrained to canine biomorphology. Oversize military grade cyborgs are not permitted a BIOSKIN© wrap.

  13) Antique: Refers to any North American cultural practice that claims its roots in the 20th century or before; Eg., unregistered guns, hand rolling cigarettes, gasoline powered vehicles, rubber tires, music composed and played with actual instruments versus telepathic DJ’ing or AI based compositions.

  15) Architect, The: The reclusive sociopolitical engineer responsible for catalyzing The Progressive Revolution of 2041 and penning the 12 Steps to Vision which ultimately led to the passage of NAUS Constitutional Amendment 33. DEA and EPA oversight are placed under jurisdiction of The Office of the Architect which was founded in 2056.

  17) Autostream: Automated external communication by a computer or drone.

  17A) Battborgs: Non-fusion, cybernetic life form powered by conventional CATS batteries. Includes law enforcement CIV units such as RIOT and MARX borgs.

  18) Behavioral Modification Facility: A hospital, or division within a hospital, which is dedicated to the treatment of alcohol addicti
on through a combination of group therapy and cultural reeducation (see Bmod).

  18A) Betties: Slang term for young women; eg., “…those betties sure love to play Frisbee.”

  18B) BIODRIVE©: A Lenexa, KS based technology corporation considered to be an economic anchor in the Graphene Prairie region. Established in 2041, BIODRIVE© is responsible for the invention of the Human Biosync Processing Drive.

  18C) BioPex: Flexible, virtually indestructible, biologically adaptive plumbing utilized in exterior industrial applications.

  18D) BIOSKIN©: The living, self regenerating dermal bridge that covers a cybernetic skeletal chassis and genetically mimics the bone, skin and hair of the living animal cloned for base design. Originally created in 2053 by Dr. Marvin Adler and Dr. Sam Goldstein of Darkpool Laboratories.

  19) Blended: Slang term for being intoxicated on marijuana.

  20) Blendies: Slang term for hand rolled (see antique) cigarettes – ½ tobacco ½ jane.

  25) Bmod: Commonly used abbreviation for Behavioral Modification. Bmod psychiatric hospitals service the 30 day drug treatment regimens required by the NAUS government for citizens arrested in possession of alcohol.

  26) Boozebum: Derogatory slang term for an alcoholic or someone who drinks alcohol on a regular basis.

  26A) Borgs: Slang term for any cybernetic/animatronic life form.

  27) Camodrone: Aerial, cybernetic observation drones camouflaged as large domestic birds such as geese, owls, eagles or cranes.

  28) CannabiGene©: The largest government subsidized marijuana producer in The North American Union. Purple Tree Farms is a CannabiGene© subsidiary.

  29) CATS: Clark (cell) Alkaline Traction (battery) System; most common wireless rechargeable power source for civilian cybernetic life forms, both canine (Fido) and feline (Felix) form factors. CSF 1.0 – 2.0. See battborgs.

  30) Centibots: A first release version of closed circuit, robotic millipedes with a one week life cycle. Invented in 2076, first made available to law enforcement in 2082; designed to burrow and detect seismic activity, moisture levels (HLIR) in soil and temporal (fusion) activity.