Existence Oblivion

by Kai Ellory Viola

  But back then, it was a game. When the prisoners were introduced, things had to change. Elliot and the others that had collared those lunatics, the beasts that had been listed to attend, and realizing that one was a prominent figure in Naire, had scrapped the show at consultation phase. That had been after Reality 24, and Elliot could just about lay money on the fact that the biggest issues he'd seen were only the tip of the iceberg.

  And now, this version. When it next crossed his desk, Elliot was told, tersely, not to reject anything, it had been taken care of. That had triggered a three week long 'training' and presentation project. Elliot knew his eyes were glazed the minute he came into the room, and he could see the contempt written over the faces of everyone he dealt with, but Beth ate it up like mana and sustenance from the gods themselves.

  Naire wasn't listed this time.

  Nathan Naire, the worst of the offenders currently incarcerated by the UCPS, spent most of his time in solitary. Six out of the last eight riots in Darkness Central Penitentiary had been his religious fanatics. Not only did it breed and rewire people into religious indoctrination, it was fatal if they crossed him. He was the only civilian so far that had reliably wired that kill switch. He needed to be isolated from that specific trait, and the easiest way was not to treat him, it was to store him somewhere.

  Glass case, little bug, Elliot thought. He knew, because Morri told him that they were still trying to decode it. Billions of lines of code stored in tiny little devices, most of it dead. But it randomized and rewrote – like DNA, it took on a bit of the host, and even Naire's wasn't pure any more. So, he was kept under glass.

  And the running pool at the office suggested that not only was he going to be stored, but he was the next 'warm body' up for Nano virus vaccination testing.

  The sooner he got this over with the better.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Back home - the room quiet and still - Beth wasn't around, and Elliot felt the chill of her missing in the edges of the room as he passed through the hall, stripping and dropping his jacket carelessly, tossing one shoe off the end of his foot so it slid up the hall like he'd punched it, the other swiping off to one side, bouncing at an angle then coming to rest in front of him where he trip-staggered over it before switching on the light. His wall was jutting slightly, carelessly.

  Without thinking, Elliot palmed it closed and walked through to his office. The wall was a half-finished clash of yellow, buttercup wallpaper against the older, darker stripe that was once in ascendance. He sighed, running his fingers along the dusty edges of the wooden desk, and boxes nestled beside it. A picture of a crib emblazoned on one side was picked and scabbed, the sticker peeled off in gouts, beneath an old, ragged towel. He pulled the towel down once more, covering over the boxes, reaching up and moving the note on his wall that said 'sell furniture' to his to-do list, again, and feeling his phone rattle and reverb as the smart wall sent it over. He knew it would be on his desk in the morning too, and was one of Beth's favorite ways of getting in touch. Stick it or write it on the wall and tada, there it was.

  His hand strayed into the pouch in his bag, which he realized he was still carrying, bumping against his hip.

  The DVD was anachronous in a world where everything streamed, but was still used for pre-logged, raw footage, cameras shooting and writing in various formats before archival. He'd worked with a tech once to get the most basic equipment and ensure it couldn't communicate with Coretex.

  He logged it to his personal notes, and then looked over, trying to decide whether to formally log on his system, on his wall, that he had it. He hesitated, fingering the note.

  They want to do it once a year.

  Inserting the disc, he settled down in an office chair that creaked and growled under his weight, shifting and settling in a delicate rocking motion that moved and molded to him. There was an alarming moment when it didn't settle properly, and overbalanced, feeling like it would give way at any minute, then settled back into the expected, reliant position that squeezed his spine and ached in his joints, slightly off balance, and slightly off key, so he wouldn't nod off here. Discomfort wasn't just a trick for detectives to elicit confessions, Elliot used it on his own body and his own weaknesses to perform his best. There were a few things he needed to do first though.

  Reaching back into his bag, he pulled out a jack port - like Morri's, it was a small box, and reached up and plugged himself in. The tingle-shudder that ran along the back of his neck, like something dropping out from underneath him, water pouring down his spine, and nowhere else, rippled over his skin. Pressure tickled in the port - the buffer reacting to his latent tiredness, and probing how fast he was able to absorb data. It was an odd sensation. Pain and pressure in the center of his forehead as, for a second, the port and the buffers between him and the download stream, adjusting itself. There was a loud beep, and he brought the box up from where his hand was hanging at his side. It said

  "45% LATENCY - RECOMMEND SLEEP" in big, red letters. It was common to see that warning though - in fact, Elliot thought he'd rarely seen clear and green.

  The box itself was a Wi-Fi buffer - EMP shielded and designed to work as a...repository of sorts. It could be scrolled manually, but as it was the size of a phone (and contained all manner of encryption and decryption protocols) it was rare for someone to do that - unless of course they couldn't jack in. Instead, the wire snaking out of one corner let people jack into the feed - the two part device meeting half the user's neck (and interfacing with the nanites in each person's blood), and then downloading directly into a virtual projection area created in front of their gaze.

  Smart desks had grooves - subtle areas that sunk slightly - for these boxes. Each was keyed to the protocol of the officer. And that was why Elliot hated them - he'd often felt like something else was going on while jacked in - that CORE was taking information it shouldn't. And it was supposed to be impossible – it wasn't supposed to trawl without causing real, physical pain (he'd seen that when they couldn't get sense out of the drug addled, lunatic fringe that were often picked up at full moon, when the Naire Virus was at its peak – especially over the summer. The anguished screams coming from behind him after he'd dropped them into a null cell was something no policeman would ever forget). It was against the rules for them to trawl that way - but it did happen.

  The six months he'd just gotten through were the worst. The reports that apparently came from 'concerned members of his team' were getting to be too close to the bone - too much like he was being scanned. There was stuff in there that he couldn't have told, couldn't have mentioned. Wasn't even conscious thought – that he'd eat his gun, electrocute himself through his badge, or worse, deliberately hunt down and apprehend a virus broadcaster. While they were mandated to do so, the law still hadn’t caught up – broadcasters were ostensibly taken down when they did ‘something else’.

  And while he could continue to use his VR equipment under cover, it was beginning to feel like CORE was using him - making him the carrier for architecture that couldn't be deployed otherwise. It was subtle decay at first, but soon, the clubs he used to DJ at - all bar one - were closed. Coincidence didn't happen much, not with three mega computers running a whole city, and Elliot knew, deep down, he was the cause. He also knew he couldn't stop. He wouldn't stop. He hadn't stopped for Beth, and was as addicted to the music as he was to the dreamless nights after – when his brain wandered the lowlands of coma, as he used all of his reserves to power the set – to reach the people. To live.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Static crackles across the screen, the four cameras flickering on like eyes opening into the void, then white noise for a few seconds in a rolling, tumbling wave that overtakes each screen. A sync card flashes on and off, and it appears that someone is turning and adjusting each camera in turn, pausing in between.

  And then, one after another, a figure appears on the screen and waves once.

  After another minute or so, four people slowly walk to
wards the camera, and make a show of lifting cards to the monitors, cards which read 'The self-preservation contest'

  The DVD then cuts to four channels, diary style and Elliot fast forwards, watching four bright young girls and boys gesture to the cameras, animatedly describing in an orchestra of hope, what they'll do when they win. There are twelve of them – equally split between boys, girls and 'self-identifying'. Elliot knew that meant they had clone DNA – the clone's first uses were to cure and remove cancer from the body. This was before…before the incidents that outlawed them. And this film was right on the edge of that.

  He recognized one - Rebba Marrn - as the bright young girl that had started the campaign against the project – claiming to be a survivor. Elliot also knew she was the first clone ever to turn psychotic. In a way, she was the reason for Morri's whole burgeoning division.

  CORETEX monitoring might put him out of business, but clones... Morri's department was here to stay as long as the citizenry of Darkness relied on nano or duplicate anything.

  Rebba's clone had been grown for brain cancer – the imprint process somehow finding the one vulnerability of the nervous process of the clones – they couldn't carry memories and still remain stable. How long they lasted was a crap-shoot – some managed years, others....months. Days. Many went after their donors, and subsumed their lives, becoming more and more unstable as time went by.

  As had happened to Morri's husband.

  There was a rule against cloning policemen. Mostly because, clones and CORETEX were two of the most terrifying thoughts that could ever cross anyone's minds, in the current technological climate. CORETEX held video testimony that could be extrapolated to gain a partial profile – especially on those that were deeply filmed – like Nate Naire.

  Rebba's clone had somehow appeared outside the warehouse after – perhaps a setup by Rebba herself, but it had been found, covered in blood and filth, jabbering and screaming in the doorway to the . The captive had vanished, or had been torn apart by the clone, and the clone had also carefully – oh so cleverly – destroyed all bar one repository of footage, and the body of her 'donor'. And had then gone on to kill her loving parents, the psychologist trying to get them to agree to genetic profiling. Then, three policemen in a bloody rampage that had destroyed any chance of anyone ever being able to look at 'Big Brother with Blood' as anything other than a crime filled concept for ten years.

  Most clones passing through Morri's hands now were remnant or fragment. Remnants were clones originally used for DNA support, and disease cure, and often carried all bar a few key memories. They were just as unstable as mental patients. As unstable as he was considered, carrying bipolar with him like he was a ride along. Elliot managed. No one knew, unless he told them. But of course, CORE knew.

  Fragments were something altogether different – something horrible that Morri's department was now set up to handle. These poor machines were androids that didn't know they were clones - and lived in the twilight word between Darkness and the rest of the civilized world. They were Darkness' chief export right now. Or at least, that’s what Morri feared. As forward facing as her department was, many thought that was a step too cunning for the criminals behind fragments. But, why kidnap a child, when you could clone one, and your only crime would be exporting contraband technology. And while Elliot felt that it wasn't as bad as it could be – after all, pedophilia and other issues had been, effectively solved by these machines, they were still sentient. They had their own memories – not an overlay and a kick start. They might carry one or two from the 'donor' body but by and large, they were raised, in accelerated environments to grow into people with rich pasts, and difficult to track. And then, when some genius worked out that they could be used as reservoirs for nano virus shipping, it was game over in many ways. Elliot couldn't and wouldn't condone any of it, but he couldn't understand why clones weren't easy to shut down. Mostly machine, they couldn't be found with traditional scans, but there were ways.

  He sighed, his attention returning to the footage running along the TV screen.

  Next up was some footage of the thirteenth member - along with a scrolling tabard of his crimes. Elliot blinks once or twice, pausing the footage to read and reference various aspects of the member's crime sheet.

  "Lots of the footage is dull, the first two hours just people sneaking cautiously into camera shot, then stalking, stealthily back out, ducking and aborting runs through doors as if they can't commit to anything, and occasionally, almost out of shot, a figure watches them. Something in the way that he's watching them is almost predatory, painful." The narrator's voice strays from bored to excited, swinging between one element - one aspect and another as she describes the action on screen.

  2:04:48 - Rebba Marrn

  She's running across the room, hair whipping about her face as she skids to a stop in the middle of the room. She flips a coy wave to the camera, blowing a kiss, though jumps and looks off camera - before slowly relaxing again. There's no sound with this camera, for some reason.

  Carefully inspecting in each of the doorways, she closes the door she entered by, then the one on the other side of the square room, before pulling a bed over and jamming it so that the door can't open. And then, she sits down on the floor, pulls her rucksack off and begins to eat.

  Suddenly, she's on her feet, yelling at the doorway, pointing at something just off camera. She's constantly checking the camera is there, as if someone is watching, as if someone could rescue her, narrating to the watcher.

  Across the screen scrolls:

  "Oh no. Oh no. He found me. Do something Michael - dammit, you said this room was safe. He's found me."

  She shoots a look behind her. She says something, with no way to lip-read it, then, frantically begins tugging at the bed, trying to pull it away from the door. A shape enters the room, tall, slim. The pauses, slightly in the shadows, and watches. She continues to pull frantically at the bed, and he moves, carefully, a step closer. She's frantic by this point, sliding onto the corner of the bed. She begins to tug at the edge of the bed, and he takes another step forward before turning, bowing to the camera and then, in one swift movement, effortlessly wraps his hands around her throat, throttling her. She goes down struggling and screaming, feet drumming off the bed in an eerily silent peepshow.

  Closed caption on the footage - 'Rebbeka Marrn, deceased'.

  2:29:45

  A different voice cut in this time and he recognizes it as Captain Roth. Morrigan’s husband had been involved in the Rebba case.

  “It's obvious from this viewing that he's playing with them - he slips in and out of shot while they're clowning around in the rooms that are set up for footage - and as I watch, I realize that while there are four split screens - so far, 22 cameras logged. Not as much as Real24, but as a prototype, it's not bad, technology wise. The man picks off one more person running through the building, clotheslining one of them as they charged past at the scream of another. Some cameras have no sound, while others pick up everything - whispers and shuffles as loud as normal talking. All of them, so far, are avoiding the room where plastic curtains obscure the door - it looks like this 'event' was organized in an abattoir, which based on police reports makes the footage authentic.”

  Elliot paused the DVD, his mind racing ahead of scribbling a spider web mind map. The dual overlays, of what he knew and the information flickering across the screen warring in his head. It all melded together, but he was sure…something wasn’t right. He just couldn’t put his finger on it.

  He considered phoning Morrigan, but after Everyone in Darkness PD knew a little about this case - not only because it was a ground-breaking case in the later campaign to get all recording equipment tied into and registered to CORETEX, but because it was eventually traced back to Erin Naire. And now, little connections sprung in his head, pulling him back into the interesting parts.

  Erin Naire's 'religious leader' Nate Naire was in one of the jails. Elliot had helped put him there - and
hadn't come up from under cover until that was over and done with. Morri's case was now impinging into that area, and the rot had spread, taking out her husband with it.

  His mind reeled, spinning faster than he liked - a merry-go-round of facts springing up and teasing him, the tingle tugging at the edge of his consciousness. He knew he was missing something - it was that breathless feeling that always got him looking back. The idea that the thing you overlooked as trivial was actually really important, the clue you rejected as mindless was key - the darker shadow watching you wasn't your imagination.

  Elliot learned to trust his gut. It might sometimes seem off at times, but it'd come back, and churn later when he got it wrong.

  And it was gone again. The tingle subsided - whatever tenuous link pulling at his head and digging into his skin dissolved and he was looking at a spinning cacophony that made no sense. Nothing, none of it did. Maybe he did need to sleep.

  He unpaused the DVD, watching inventive ways for people to die play out on the screen with little to no sound. His knowledge of the case extended only so far, but this wasn't new footage. It had been recovered - along with the bodies - two days after the time stamp showed the killer escaping. The money - hidden inventively by one of the kids - Elliot couldn't think of them as anything but - remaining in situ.