Emergence (A DRMR Novel Book 2)

by Michael Patrick Hicks

  Mesa. Look.

  She followed the voice to the screen Alice had been watching throughout her sudden existential crisis. She tracked the words to the mem and gasped, her heart hammering while her stomach lurched heavily into her throat.

  Jade. Wearing fishnet stockings and a too-short skirt, she marched up Occidental, her hair mussed up into a faux hawk. Mesa couldn’t help but smile at the sight of her friend’s typical “don’t screw with me” look. Then her face contorted into writhing agony as a shock stick was jammed into the base of her spine. Then she was pushed into a van while Kaften watched through the vehicle’s mirrors before he turned his full attention to the road before him, happy with the cleanliness of the abduction.

  They took her.

  Yes, Alice said.

  They didn’t kill her, I mean. They killed everyone else. But not her.

  I saw.

  Well, why? What’s that mean?

  Alice tried to hide it, but Mesa could feel the shuffling of memories. They were too closely a part of one another; Mesa knew that was a hiccup in Alice’s plan. Kaften was a foot soldier, operating only on the orders he’d been given. His understanding of the full importance of Jade’s abduction had not been necessary. Alice, though, knew more than she was letting on. Mesa pressed forward, seizing the strands of thought that her other tried to keep hidden.

  Jade worked for you? Mesa’s entire world shifted and writhed, forcing her to wonder what, exactly, was real. The loss of absolutes pounded into her like rapid-fire body shots and an elbow jab to the face. It ached.

  She was a memorialist. Before I died, I sent out multiple data packets and instructions.

  Mesa narrowed her eyes, pinching her lips together.

  Jade was to find you and befriend you then wait for me, Alice continued.

  She was spying on me?

  She was your friend. She was my friend.

  And these data packets were… what? What were they? Mesa fought off a wave of vertigo as the small hotel room spun around her, upsetting her stomach.

  Fragmentary personality.

  They were you?

  Yes.

  You divvied yourself up and sent them off? She fought down the rising stream of bile that burned her throat.

  Crude but essentially correct.

  Jade had a data packet?

  No. She merely had an objective. The data packets were sent to multiple individuals with instructions to wait. Once the various aspects of myself emerged, we were to unite and offload the data. Once that was completed, the personality construct could reassemble and merge.

  Why divide yourself up? Mesa asked. She felt as if she were about to throw up, and sweat blossomed across her forehead from the heated anger boiling inside her.

  Insurance, primarily. But I also had to weigh the repercussions of sending a single data packet to an individual or multiple individuals. File size, transfer time, those were all factors. But inducing an entire personality whole-cloth into a brain already firmly lodged with another personality could be disastrous.

  You’re talking about body-shifting.

  I am, Alice said.

  That’s what you tried to do to me?

  It is. Your mind had to be destroyed so that I could implant myself into your body without further complications.

  And by complications, you mean… this. All this. You and me, here, together. She waved her arms at the motel room walls, as if Alice were a physical being sharing more than headspace.

  The risk would have been exorbitant, to both of us. You are having trouble processing all of this, I know, but I assure you—this is nothing.

  It’s nothing to you, Mesa said, her anger fully bleeding through her thoughts.

  I understand you’re distressed, but—

  Distressed? Seriously? That’s what you call this? Fucking distress? She wanted to scream. She settled for grabbing her bottle of water and throwing it across the room, seething. Her heart was pounding, her lips furling in hatred. She wished Alice were a physical creature simply so she could have the satisfaction of beating her ass and bloodying her face with her fists.

  Alice went silent again, waiting for Mesa to calm.

  What was the big plan, then? You sent out all these packets, waiting for emergence, and then what? Where were you going to put all these files? Her thoughts raged, buffeting Alice’s presence with a wall of fury.

  Again, Alice stayed silent, letting Mesa put the pieces together herself. After a moment, it hit.

  Oh.

  Mesa saw the plan unfold. The multiple data carriers were each a potential host or a puppet that could be seized and used to find another suitable body. Using the carriers, Alice could resurrect herself and body-shift in full into a new host. She could cheat death.

  Kaften’s memories made the dent in her plan rather clear, though. All of the other carriers were dead. Their memories might have been transmitted and disseminated. The data packets had likely multiplied and been replicated far beyond the original scope. Instead of isolating the data, it could have been disseminated and spread far and wide.

  The LA memorialists had picked up much of the labor load. Smaller groups in Denver and Traverse City and one small batch in the Philippines had all been dispatched, quietly, effortlessly, with barely a blip. The kills had been covert, more precise, less hostile.

  They’re starting to panic, Mesa realized. Daedalus doesn’t know how far things have spread. They’re trying to scare off the memorialists.

  Scare them or kill them, whatever works best—it doesn’t matter.

  How did Daedalus know about the data packets?

  I told them, Alice said.

  That simple admission made Mesa reel, and she spent a moment recovering. What?

  Kaften was there when I died, Alice said. It is a safe guess that my body was transferred to Daedalus custody, where, I’m sure, they invested plenty of man-hours gleaning as much data off my mem chip as they could. Then it was simply a matter of enacting containment and termination protocols.

  Do you realize what you’ve done? Mesa asked. You made yourself viral.

  I wouldn’t worry, sweetie. I’m sure that while Daedalus has been busy killing people, they have also been working on security patches. You’ll soon be getting a software update fixing known bugs and other issues. It will be a security patch that will inoculate against me. It will prevent the spread and will likely also include a surveillance worm. Daedalus will contain this.

  And how many lives will you have cost in the process?

  Too many, Alice said with surprising frankness. The weight of burden was clear in her tone. The real question now is, do you want to live more than you want to kill me?

  Mesa shut her eyes, clearing away the mem display and thumbing off the power node. She disconnected the DRMR and set it aside.

  She pinged Rameez on the commNet again, relieved by the distraction his face provided. “You holed up yet?”

  “I’m in my room.”

  “Good. While you’re lying low, I need you find out whatever you can on Maxwell Schaeffer. Be discreet.”

  Chapter 17

  The next three days passed with little incidence. Mesa had kept the “do not disturb” icon lit on the door, but she had still seen the manager trying to peek through the window shades, probably making sure she hadn’t OD’d and died. She’d paid for the room for a week, and beyond that single instance, there had been few signs of life beyond the motel room. A car groaned past on occasion, but even noises such as that were rare.

  By the morning of the fourth day, and after a steady diet of MREs, she was starting to feel vaguely human and less broken. She began putting weight on her injured leg without incident, and she’d changed the shoulder dressing daily, noting its progress.

&
nbsp; She flicked on the bathroom light and peeled back the gauze. The gunshot wound was barely discernible, but the scarring was significant, leaving the rebuilt pink flesh ropey and tender. She pressed her fingers along the stretch of collar bone, wincing slightly. The musculature was weak, and she worked on rotating the arm. The pain was excruciating. The limb, stiff and heavy, couldn’t even make one full rotation, and she couldn’t stretch or lift the arm above the bottom of her ribcage. Still, the progress was remarkable, and the wound had stopped seeping the previous day, leaving scabs bridging the gap.

  It’s much better, Alice said. She’d been radio-silent for most of the last few days, and her attempt at encouragement felt disingenuous at best.

  Mesa rolled her eyes at the mirror and taped a fresh sterile pad across her shoulder.

  We should get moving if you plan on saving your friend.

  She nodded. Though she wasn’t up for more traveling, she had no other choice. Move or die, those were the options.

  After disconnecting with Rameez, Mesa had spent much of the night cataloguing her losses and crying over the murders of her father, her boyfriend, and her friends.

  A year ago, Kaizhou had proposed to her. Somewhat, at least. They’d gotten dinner and gone to a movie, and as they stepped out of the theater, Mesa stared skyward to take in the stars and moon. They leaned against the wall, and she felt him watching her. She turned and smiled. He pulled her close, his body warming her as their tongues circled each other’s. They’d confessed their love to one another three months prior, and it had felt like an awakening.

  Holding her hands, he asked, “Would you marry me?”

  A smile exploded across her face. She looped her arms around his neck, whispering, “Yes.”

  Tears welled in his eyes as he pulled away. “I don’t have a ring. I’ll have to ask you again later, when I get one.” He shrugged. “I wanted to know, though. You know?”

  She laughed, and after a moment, he did, too.

  They didn’t speak of it again, but she’d idly wondered if the day would ever come. She knew it never would. She’d never told Jonah of it, nor had Kaizhou. Their engagement had been a secret between two young lovers. Neither had any need to rush—their entire lives were ahead of them.

  Thinking back on it, in a dirty, run-down bathroom, she wiped away the tears and blinked until her vision cleared. She finished wrapping her shoulder then pulled on a too-large black long-sleeved summer shirt.

  Ely was small and sparsely inhabited, but it did have a small county-run airstrip that offered private jet travel. Rameez had come through with fresh fake creds for her two days before, and she still had a bundle of u-cash to cover the fare.

  In the lot, she pulled herself up into the back compartment of the Humvee and unzipped the backpack. She’d gotten rid of her other clothes and replaced them with a fresh pair of pants, boxers, and shirts, all too big but adequate. She found a black army hat and pulled that on, too.

  She pulled two pistols off the wall mounts, inspected them, then broke them down for a quick cleaning. Reassembled, loaded with one in the chamber and the safety on, they were buried in the bag beneath the clothes and wrapped in a large shirt along with plenty of spare ammunition. She tossed a sheathed Ka-bar knife into the bag for good measure. Opening up the front pockets, she stuffed in more MREs and bottles of water.

  You’re walking into a trap, Mesa. You know that, right? Daedalus will not stop hunting us just because you killed a few of their men. They have Rameez under surveillance, hoping to lure you out. He is bait, nothing more.

  I know, Mesa said. But I still have to try.

  Along with the fake credentials, Rameez had sent along his mems so she could study the men following him and be prepared to spot them. She found two candidates, and Alice had discovered a potential third. All three were nondescript. A casual observer wouldn’t have noticed any of them, but fortunately, Rameez had been paranoid enough to notice.

  Given the nature of the seastead, moving a full team into place and keeping a running surveillance operating for a long period of time would have been difficult. Faces were bound to become familiar, even if players were rotated in and out. On the other hand, Mesa had to be mindful that there could be many more operators in play. Rameez had simply chanced upon these three.

  Jade watched with detachment, an almost clinical cool, as the needle slid into a branch off the dorsal venous network on the back of her hand. Clear liquid slowly pushed into the vein, sending a cool flush through her, and a few moments later, she felt as if she were floating. The nurse was a stranger. The antiseptic white room was a foreign cube.

  The nurse slowly withdrew the needle and replaced it with a small puff of cotton. She affixed a small stretch of tape across it, offering Jade a small, tight-lipped smile.

  “See, it’s OK.”

  “OK,” Jade said. She closed her eyes to block out the nauseating spinning sensation but reopened them at the sound of shuffling cloth. Focusing was supremely challenging, but she made out the impression of a tall man standing over her, his arms crossed over his chest. He wore a dark business suit, his hair freshly trimmed and neatly combed. His smile was beautiful and carried the faintest pang of recognition, even though she couldn’t quite place the why or how of it all.

  “Jade, I’m Maxwell Schaeffer. Do you remember meeting me?”

  She was puzzled, her head still swimming. She squinted, trying to discern the details of his face. He did seem familiar, but she wasn’t sure why.

  “I don’t,” she admitted. “No, I’m sorry.”

  “No, no, there’s no need to be sorry about anything. It’s fine.” He smiled, his teeth competing with the room for bright whiteness.

  She’d never seen such perfectly straight teeth. And what a strange thought that was.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Dizzy,” she said.

  “Upset tummy?”

  She nodded weakly. “A bit. I feel…”

  He arched an eyebrow at her, taking her hand. He settled into a stool beside her bed and leaned over her, placing a bare wrist against her forehead.

  She felt neither hot nor cold.

  “What is it, sweetie? What do you feel?”

  “I… I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t remember what I was going to say.” She laughed quietly to herself, devoid of humor.

  “It’s going to be all right. We’re going to have you right as rain in no time.”

  “Are you my doctor?”

  “No, I’m not. I’m very interested in your case. That’s all.”

  “Why are you interested in me?” She stared at his white teeth, beatific smile, and coiffed hair. A part of her felt flattered. Another part of her, though, something inexplicable and primal, recoiled from his attention, sensing the threat beneath his gaze. But it was short lived. There and then gone.

  “Well,” he said, “I guess I’m a humanitarian, now aren’t I?”

  She smiled uncomfortably. A dark cloud formed in her mind and left her unsettled. Her limbs were lead weights, and a wave of exhaustion swept over her, threatening to drown her. Her eyelids felt impossibly heavy.

  “You go ahead and sleep now, darling,” Schaeffer said.

  Schaeffer supervised as the nurse installed an intravenous drip into Jade’s data port, where the inhibitor device had been removed and replaced with an adapter port. Rather than a saline solution, the bag on the IV stand infused a PKMZeta inhibitor named ZIP directly into Jade’s hippocampus. The ZIP solution was rapidly destroying Jade’s short-term memory and slowly eradicating her long-term memories.

  In an hour, she would forget that their conversation had ever happened, and Schaeffer would once again be a stranger. The process of removing himself from her memories had taken two days, since many of her memories involving
him were closely tied to fear.

  Fear tended to leave very strong mnemonic imprints, particularly in youthful individuals. The rigorous torture sessions that had greeted her on Alabaster had woven very strong bonds of terror into her brain’s neural pathways. Still, after a few more sessions, all of that would be erased. By the end of the week, if past research was sound and effective, Jade would be gone entirely.

  Soon, she would be nothing more than a vacant shell lying prone in bed, her fully functional brain merely an empty vessel.

  Once the ZIP wiped the slate clean, the body would be weaned off it and restarted on a regimen of PKMZeta builders, to help restart the brain’s ability for memory retention and storage. By the time they got to that stage, Schaeffer planned to be finished weeding through the volunteers to find a suitable candidate for transference.

  Although Alice Xie had already experimented with much of the process in Los Angeles, Xie was hardly a suitable test subject. She was, in fact, a rogue element and a thief. Still, she had shown the viability of the research. Jade, however, was a much more suitable test subject, like the volunteer Schaeffer would eventually settle on. The entire endeavor was being carried out under Daedalus supervision and control, with nothing left to chance. No rogue elements. No PRC. No Alice Xie, in as much as that could be controlled.

  Losing Kaften had been a serious blow, and Mesa was in the wind, yet again. He was beginning to admire her craftiness, and not merely because she had tried to lay waste to an entire backwater gambling town with a wildfire. That had been good for a few laughs, and he had learned not to underestimate her. She was clearly far more volatile than they had been led to expect—he would have a few words with Alice Xie about that.

  Volatile but not uncontrollable, and certainly not untouchable.

  Mesa had two people left in the world. Rameez and Jade. And Schaeffer had eyes on both of them. If Mesa made it to Jade, Schaeffer would certainly know about it. Rameez was another issue entirely, and the team surveilling him had been warned to take the appropriate measures of caution.