Soul Jacker Box Set

by Michael John Grist

  "I-"

  "Deadbolt the door and wedge it in. Use everything you have. Do it right now. I'll still be here. Put the phone on speaker and do it now. I want to hear it happening."

  I take the phone from my head and stare at it blankly for a moment. I don't know what I'm supposed to do.

  "Amo!"

  I remember and click the button for speaker. I hear the distant sound of Cerulean's home somewhere in the South filter into my New York apartment. There is his breathing and the sound of a dehumidifier, sucking damp out of the cement basement that's been his prison cell since he fell.

  I shake myself and look to the bed, then the door, and start moving to bring them together. The bed drags noisily out of the recessed wall. I push its headboard flush against the door. The headboard has metal slats that reach three quarters up the height of the door, so even if one of the zombies get in the house and successfully punch a hole through the door, they'll still have to get over the slats.

  "I've done the bed," I call to Cerulean. "I'm getting the desk."

  "Good. Don't damage your computer, you're going to need that."

  I lift my monitor carefully off, then drag the desk to the tail of the bed. Laid end on, it fits almost perfectly between the bed and the wall, wedged into place. It's going nowhere. They'd have to bend the bed's metal frame or push it through the wall to get in, and I don't see either of those happening. That's more force than human bodies can muster.

  I drop to the floor by the side of the bed and start to shake.

  "I've done it," I say to the phone, turning it off speaker mode and holding it back to my ear.

  "Good, good. Now you need to relax. We can talk about something that really matters. How did your date with the Tomb Raider girl go?"

  I laugh beside myself. I scratch at the wooden floor with a fingernail.

  "It went fine. It went great. She liked the final panel in my comic book. You remember?"

  Of course he remembers. I showed it to him first, two days earlier, and it sent him into a monumental twinge, but still he stayed on the line to tell me how beautiful he thought it was.

  That's the kind of friend he is. When all my other friends left, or just drifted away, because staying in touch with someone in 'my condition' was just too damn hard, or too slow, Cerulean showed what true friendship is.

  He was there last night, texting me when I collapsed in the restroom, overcome by all the stimulation on my date with Lara. I'd thought for sure I was going to die at the table, face-first in my grey poupon soup. Then he sent me a text that made it all seem different, that gave me the strength to get back in there and survive my date.

  "She came back here afterward," I say, shy now. "I didn't expect that, but…" I trail off. "She's gone now. The note she left, Cerulean, it's mad."

  "Call me Robert," he says. "That's my name."

  More tears pour down my cheeks. I try to gulp them back. "I know. OK, Robert."

  "Are you crying? Come on old buddy. Pull yourself together. It's not the end of the world. Just the end of most of it. You said she's gone?"

  I laugh. I rub my eyes. "I don't know. I think so, yes, she's gone. She left a note, it said 'Good luck with the zombies'. She was talking about the comic, but Christ, look at this shit, Cerulean. I mean Robert. Where the hell is she now?"

  "Probably running halfway down Manhattan, if she's not already infected. Calm your ass down, Amo. What are you going to do for her now? She'll either get safe or she won't, on her own. You're lucky you're alive. You know how many people out there who're immune? Do you have any idea?"

  "No idea. I didn't see any. Maybe her?"

  "Maybe her. On top of that there's me and there's you. I've not seen any others, Amo, not any at all. Every live video feed I saw got corrupted in seconds, because the people filming it were infected. It's the most virulent thing ever. It's like that cat in the box, the second you open the box to see if it's alive or not, it drags you in so you're inside the box too. There's no time to report out."

  I laugh through my tears. "Schrodinger's cat. I don't think that's how it works."

  "Whatever. Listen, Amo, it can't be a coincidence that it's me and you, and maybe her. Did she have the same condition as us, did she have a coma then recover like us?"

  I wince as I try to recall. "She said she burned out. I don't think she was twingeing though. I don't think so."

  "Well maybe you'll find out. Perhaps proximity to you conferred immunity. I'm pretty sure we're immune, Amo, because whatever is hitting them now hit us a year ago. Do you follow? Some lesser strain hit us, but it acted like a vaccine, so now we're safe. We went blank, we died multiple times, but they brought us back. Maybe if we hadn't been brought back, we'd be like these others out on the streets now. We got saved."

  I shudder. I'm grasping at straws now.

  "You're alive," is all I can say.

  He laughs. "I am."

  We sit in silence for a while. My room comes back to me. I look up at my Banksy print on the wall, the guy throwing the flowers. I wonder, is Banksy a zombie now too? Is Space Invader?

  "I can come for you," I say. "I'll get a nice car and make it there in a day. I'll drive all night."

  "That's a lyric from a song isn't it?"

  "Stop it! Tell me your address and I'll come."

  "No, you won't. Why in hell would you come here Amo, to see my bitten-out corpse laid up in a bloody cradle stinking of methadone and shit? I'll not have that. I won't be alive by then, Amo. Understand that. Accept that, and we can move on. I've downloaded everything I can think of to your computer, plus a few extras I've had the time to come up with. The fulfillment center will be a bit different. I think it's going to be pretty important to you, going forward, or for a while at least. There are some new routines. You'll figure it out. Until then we can talk."

  I sag. "I want to come."

  "I want you to come too. Don't you think I'd love that, if you could come charging in now and rescue me from this mess? But you can't. It's not going to happen, so let's move on. We've never even spoken before, have we? Hi, Amo, I'm Robert. I'm a freak just like you. We might be the last two people alive in the world."

  I laugh. "Hi, Robert, I'm Amo. It's good to meet you. I don't want you to die."

  "So tell me about the date," he says. "Tell me everything."

  I do, about the twinges and the conversation, about the wild rush back to my apartment and the pain coming free, and at the end he sighs contentedly. "I'm happy for you, Amo. It sounds great."

  I smile through tears, because yes, it was.

  "You'll need to hang on to that memory, Amo. You will, won't you? Lara might be alive out there. You might be able to find her. Hold on to that. You'll put out some flags and let her now where you are. You'll figure this thing out and make it right. I know you will. You've always been resourceful, and smart, and so damn charming."

  I laugh.

  "It's good you can laugh. Don't forget that. Don't you dare feel guilty. I want it to be you, not me. You're a good man. You're the best friend I've ever had. I want you to get good things out of this and become better for it. There's always room to grow. When I lost my legs and I knew I could never dive anymore, I just about gave up. Then I found this weird guy who'd built a weird world on Deepcraft, and he welcomed me in. He loaned me a diviner and we fulfilled stupid orders together. I saw the world through him, and I'm still seeing the world through him now. Amo, you're going to be OK."

  I find I'm gulping at the air.

  "Get yourself solid. Research the stuff I sent. Find a safer place than your apartment, a bank or something downtown, somewhere this girl Lara can find, and start clearing the streets around. Make a base and she'll be drawn to you, Amo, if you're offering safety and something worth having. That way you'll find the others too, the ones like us who are lost somewhere across the country and don't have each other like we've had each other. I know you will. You'll make good things out of this."

  I gulp back tears. I c
an hear the thumping through the phone getting louder.

  "She's almost through the door isn't she?"

  "She is. It's all right. I have the syringe loaded with my methadone, enough of a dose to knock me right out. I won't feel a thing. It's better this way Amo. I wouldn't stand a chance on the road. I was never good in a wheelchair."

  I sob into the phone. "How long?"

  "I don't know. A minute, maybe five? I've already injected it." His voice starts to go woozy. "You'll stay on the line won't you? You'll wait with me."

  "Of course I will. Robert, I'm sorry."

  "Don't be sorry. You're here with me. We're in the fulfillment center, running it together. I have legs again, Amo. We're keeping up with the orders. We're one step ahead."

  The tears are coming freely. I hate this. I want to reach through the phone and save him. I want to save my friend, but I can't.

  "Goodbye, Amo," he says fuzzily. There is a crash through the line, and his mother must have breached the basement.

  "Robert," I say urgently. "Robert."

  "She's coming. I won't feel a thing. The Darkness is so close. I'm going to turn the phone off now Amo. I don't want you to hear this. Goodbye."

  The phone clicks dead. The sound from his distant basement fades at once. My last link to Cerulean is severed.

  I lean back against the bed and cry, curled around the phone like it's a dagger thrust though my belly.

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  GLOSSARY

  Aether – The space beyond the aetheric bridge, where all souls manifest as star-like lights, and lines representing all connections they've ever made with people or places exist.

  Aetheric Bridge – The doorway at the center of the Solid Core, beyond which lies the aether. No-one has ever crossed it until Ritry does so.

  Afri-Jarvanese – A language, part African dialect, part Japanese.

  Arcloberry – A berry discovered preserved as a seed, deep within the melting Arctic pack ice.

  Arctic War – The resource wars for the hydrates under the Arctic ice, in which nations and nation-states cast aside old alliances and made every effort to grab as much ocean as possible. Ritry fought in the Arctic War aboard a subglacic, as a marine.

  Arene – The name given to marine who fought in the deserts, hunting for the last reserves of petroleum. They fought in suprarene tanks. Arene is Latin for Sand, hence 'arena.'

  Asiatic – A term similar to Asian, but different in that 'Asian' refers to sections of the 'old' world, before sea levels rose and tsunamis leveled whole island nations, while 'Asiatic' refers to the countries and peoples of the new map.

  Blood-mic – An internal communication system used by the chord, similar to bone micronodes which capture sound as it transmits through the jaw-bone. Blood-mic captures vibration of sound in the blood, much like sound was transferred to the forming Ritry Goligh in his liquid artificial womb, then relays it to the others.

  Bonds – The invisible lines created in space by the passage of human beings. Existence creates bonds, as do thought and emotion. These bonds connect the people who made them to the people, places and things they connected to. Strong emotion, powerful thoughts, powerful action, pain, love, all can create exceptionally powerful bonds. Cutting them, or Lagging them, can create vast power, which can be channeled to exert control over others. They can also be 'surfed,' where their power is used without Lagging, as Ritry does at the godships. These are the resource Mr. Ruin lives off.

  Calico – The city Ritry lives outside of, surrounded by a tall tsunami wall. Within the walls life is somewhat utopian, with very little crime or poverty.

  Calico Reach – The wealthiest, most exclusive part of Calico, in the hills.

  Candlebomb – A type of bomb, like C4.

  Chord – A team of 7 marines, each with a name that is one note of a seven-tone scale.

  Crull – A genetic cross-breed of sea gulls and crows.

  CSF – Cerebro-Spinal fluid, the natural fluid that the brain sits within. Deplete this, for example by drinking a lot of alcohol, and you get a bad headache.

  Elba – The island to which Napoleon was banished.

  EMR machine – ElectroMagnetic Resonance machine, used by graysmiths to aid in jacking minds. Currently such machines exist as fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imagers) and can be used to take pictures of the brain at work. They don't yet allow writng/rewriting of the mind.

  Exos – External suit muscles that augment human power.

  Godship – A ship commissioned and boarded during the period of global tsunami while the Arctic War played out, filled with the world's greatest believers. They were all crushed in the tsunami.

  Grapnels – Grapnel hooks fired from rifles, with an incoiling function built in.

  Soul Jacker – A specialist, like Ritry, who is capable of hacking into another person's mind, and implanting or erasing memories and knowledge. In the Arctic War they served as interrogators, morale officers, briefing and debriefing specialists, skills teachers, and psychologists. Now they primarily work in education, implanting knowledge and massaging it into place. Some, like Ritry, may also erase bad memories. The name comes from the action of extreme forms of hacking, where it seems that the soul itself, or the free will, of a person has been hijacked.

  Jack-site – Where a Soul Jacker works, usually equipped with EMR and lots of CSF.

  HUD – Heads Up Display, a marine's helmet that can display lots of data on the inner visor-screen.

  Engram – What a Soul Jacker injects when imparting new knowledge. It is injected through the eye socket and into the brain as a silvery liquid, containing memories or skills.

  Lag, the – The worm-like creature that protects the mind. It seeks to destroy any foreign bodies, including even the inhabitant of that mind, if they come in conscious contact. It can be delayed by giving it thoughts and memories to consume, but it cannot be killed so long as the mind itself is alive.

  Lag (v) – Reflecting the erasing action of the Lag, Ritry coins this term to mean erasing memories through the bonds, without resorting to erasing them while jacking in EMR.

  Mindbomb – A bomb that functions like an EMP (Electro Magnetic Pulse) for the human mind, stopping all thought and killing any people within range instantly. Soundless and without percussive blast. It can be survived if the mind is shielded within an EMR of some kind.

  Molten Core – The exterior part of the brain, most closely related to the gray part, ie the cortex. Embodied during a jack as liquid magma, because it is always in flux.

  New Anglais – A new language, a mixture of English and French.

  Proto-Calico – The floating raft city that hugs the tsunami wall of Calico, built out of the wreckage of past cities, ships, and anything else. Held up on floating blue barrels, and made up of numerous individual rafts called Skulks. The people who live here have no protection from future tsunami. Their city is essentially ungoverned and lawless, bar the efforts made by Don Zachary to cement his stranglehold over commerce.

  QC – Quantum Confusion particles, capable of dissolving regular matter. In this they act a lot like anti-matter, but can be targeted. A QC pistol contains and shoots them.

  Rusk, proto-Rusk – Nation-state comprised of remnants of Russian peoples.

  Screw, the – The propulsive screw that drives the sublavic ship.

  Sino-Rusk – Nation state comprised of partly Russian and partly Chinese nationalities.

  Shock-jacks – Stimulants that are stored in sublavic suits, and can be drawn on to negate the effects of shock, pain, and trauma.

  Skulks, The – The floating neighborhoods that tile the coast of Calico, making up proto-Calico. They are typically built from flotsam and jetsam, float atop blue barrels, and house the poor, indigent, and those unwilling to live within the order of Calico.

  Solid Core – The interior part of the brain, hidden inside the cortex, where no one has ever been before. Here the Lag is stronger, the pathways are myriad and labyrin
thine, and somewhere in the center the aetheric bridge is fable to sit. Through this doorway, great power rests. Researchers jacked Ritry for much of his childhood, searching for a way in.

  Subglacic – A ship that goes under the ice, used broadly in the Arctic War for stealth and hunting out hydrates.

  Sublavic – A ship that goes under lava, used by Ritry's chord of marines to travel through the Molten Core.

  Suprarene tank – A giant tank used by arenes who fought in the desert during the war.

  Tsunami wall – The wall around Calico, protecting it from giant tsunami brought on by the War and global sea-level change.

  Copyright © 2019 by Michael John Grist

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author.

  Cover art by Jozef.