by Russ Linton
The Collective. Motherfucking Eric and Chroma. They've been restoring both internet connections and financial transactions at a blazing pace. Europe is getting cozy with the idea of a unified economy not dominated by outside interests. Without American tech giants monopolizing search, social media, online sales, and sending the bulk of those profits to the once mighty superpower, the continental rivals have room to breathe. With the Collective's tech which, as much as I hate to say, is revolutionary, they can see the Old World re-positioned to lead the New.
Another solid week passes without a mission. I'd like to take the armor and just fly, alone. But despite Xamse's trust and absence, he's not allowing that quite yet. When the waiting gets to be too much, and the prattling of FreedomNet too grating, I take a pill. Maybe two.
"Mr. Alexander."
A voice in my room. I come to like I'm climbing out of a well, each move a new struggle. My bedroom is empty and trashed. Clothes strewn across the floor, a few books on the bed, and plates stacked both by the door and on the fancy interface table which could use a good hosing down.
"Mr. Alexander? You have a call."
Must be a call from Xamse. A new mission.
"Put it through," I grumble.
"Yes sir."
"Xamse, my friend!" I pre-empt his standard greeting. "Who's on the radar now? I need a good one. Preferably Russian, made of magma and don't give me any shit about international incidents."
"Spencer?"
Her voice cuts right through the wall of separation built by time. I see her face instantly and know by her tone the precise worried expression she wears.
"Emily?" I sit upright, my eyes searching the room. She's on the speakers, I know this, but a tiny hope that she's standing nearby burns in my chest.
"Oh my God! I can't believe...how are you?"
"Good. Fine." There's nowhere to hide in the room, but my eyes continue to rove. "You?"
"Uh, sure," she says.
"I saw you on FreedomNet," I say, suddenly excited and on my feet. "You were in New York? Helping people."
"Oh, yeah, I still am. Things are a mess here. With so many people in one place, you know, you don't realize how a little bit of power can make all the difference."
I've tried to avoid the reports. As upbeat as they are, they can't hide the fact people are dying. Lack of medical care is one, exacerbated by disease and no way to climate control the concrete skylines. Power has been restored in most places, but only intermittently, and cities with concentrated populations have suffered the most.
"Are you feeling okay?" I ask. "You haven't gotten sick, have you?" Fucking stupid question. Why would I bring that up? What can we safely talk about?
"Spencer, I heard."
She doesn't continue and doesn't need to. I'd hoped she'd never hear about Dad, I guess. I couldn't tell her. In my mind, she was busy being her own kind of superhero. Saving lives and no time, or no desire, to watch the news.
"Yeah."
Her voice trembles. "I'm so sorry. I wish..." She can't go on. We've long left wishes behind. I've accepted Dad's fate as part of the order of things in this universe. She can't, probably ever, and that's good. "Do you need anything?"
Of course, she'd ask that of me while she's working to save a fucking city. Knee deep in finding ways to treat raw sewage, and she'd ask me that of me.
"I'm good. How the hell did you find me?"
"There's the news," she says. Of course, she's on the shortlist of who would figure out the whole Beetle thing. "I'd missed enough I didn't piece it together right away. Then there was...a dream."
"What?" It's been so long since I had one, the concept sounds alien.
"I was on a beach." All it takes is for her to say those words and I'm wandering toward the screen, switching on the picture. "The whole place, water, sand, air, had this bluish hue. It took me a moment, but I remembered when I'd seen it. I had a glimpse when we jumped out of Charlotte's little treehouse." She's strained. I know how it goes with those dream visits; they always feel fresh, the past instances reawakened. "She was there. Not Charlotte but your mother."
Emily hadn't met face to face with mom since the strange transference, but she knew. So instead of speaking to me first Mom reaches out to Emily for her first discussion about Dad's death.
"Fuck," I mutter. "What else would I expect?" I say out loud, not for her, but for me. The concern is quickly displaced by another, rawer emotion. "Why did she talk to you? Why would she ever talk to you first and not me?"
Too much anger, too much pain comes out with those words. She's silent for what feels like forever, and I wonder if the call has been dropped. How long do we even have? A rolling brownout or a system overload could end this reunion at any time.
"Emily?"
"She said she couldn't find you, Spencer. She's been trying, she really has."
"Why did she leave me?" Emily has no reason to know this, but she's become the surrogate for a conversation I've needed for a long time. I should back off. I can't. "She left me in prison. Prison, Emily."
"Hang on. One thing at a time. This is difficult, for all of us."
"Sure, sure. You've watched your body snatcher Mom abandon you, and you've watched your father die. I get it."
"Nobody should see that. Ever," she says, quietly. "I've watched things close to that happen, over and over here. My own family, they haven't exactly been immune to all this either."
Yep, something like ten brothers and a Mom and Dad once protected in suburban bliss. The crisis I'm sure hit them hard. She's got family to spare. Who do I have?
"Fuck. I'm a terrible person, Em."
"No, no you aren't."
"Mom left me there for my own good, didn't she? She knew what I would become."
"Don't say that. She didn't say why she left, only she had something to do. She didn't want you there. She said she meant to come back for you when she was done, and by the time she did, you were gone."
She's crying silently now, I can tell. I am too. I've got to clear my throat before I can speak.
"Where is she, do you know?"
"She wouldn't say. Only that she's with Eric and she hopes you're okay. She's coming back later to ask."
Eric? She's with Eric? How does that make any sense? He's part of the reason her husband ended up dead. Goddammit, I need to find him. Even a general location and I can get the armor up and running into search mode. Vulkan can wait.
"Tell me where she is." I know the demand is cold, seething, but I can't say it any other way.
"I don't know. The strange beach, all in my head like when Charlotte held me prisoner. She could be anywhere."
"But she knows where I am. She's not talking to me, just Eric."
"She can't, Spencer. She's tried. I could tell she was frustrated. She does really want to speak to you."
"No, if she really wanted to, she could find a way."
I say that, but even I'm not sure. Nanomech security is top notch. The digital pipelines Eric and I used to roam freely are wrecked and mangled. Contacting Xamse could be difficult, especially without Eric revealing his location and he doesn't want to do that. Especially not to me right now.
"I don't know, but I do know she cares. She wants to see you. Her coming to me was difficult. Those powers she has work in strange ways. Connections to people and their emotional bonds or something. But you, she can't find you."
I don't know what all this means. Does it even matter? I've chosen my course here, and there isn't a way to turn back.
"Maybe that's for the best," I say.
Feedback fills the line. Other conversations bleed over into our connection. A taste of a psychically open world where everyone's thoughts are laid bare, yet somehow, you're blocked from those who matter most.
"Shit," Emily says, the curse shredded by the echoes. "Spencer, she wants you to remember who Sean was. How he tried so hard to do the right thing and was manipulated. She doesn't—"
The line goes dead.
/> This is for the best, I know it. She doesn't need to see who or what I've become. I remember exactly who my father was. He was an asset of the United States Government, and he did what they told him. He died trying to fix that. That's my legacy.
"Bye, Emily," I say into the empty room.
CHAPTER 23
"KNOCK, KNOCK!" EXCLAIMED Chroma.
Eric had plenty of regrets since Detroit. One had been teaching Chroma about emojis. The other had been sharing his own little mental hacking joke. A knock-knock joke he normally told himself as he slipped past defenses and crept through back doors. Now, for Chroma, every occasion warranted one.
"Who's there?" he asked, slumping forward to cradle his forehead.
"When."
Eric let his palm drag down his face and catch on the rough stubble. He took in a breath and snatched his glasses off the console. He'd just pulled an all-nighter. The European Union had recognized the Collective by a narrow margin, not that they'd had a choice.
Refugees had overwhelmed richer nations. Where individual governments built walls and talked about freaking deportation camps, the Collective took action. He floated the idea for his existing members to open their doors and hundreds of thousands stepped up. Be the leader. In turn, they made those huddled masses yearning to breathe free citizens of the Collective.
Physical shelter was still a problem, and he was working on that. Still, each new citizen carried their digital identity, their source of trade, income, education, healthcare, citizen engagement, you name it, all in the palm of their hand thanks to cheap cellphones. A distributed community, owned by nobody, welcoming all participants, and the only requirement was a smartphone and a connection.
That was the idea, anyway, but he had plenty of work left to do. This day was turning out to be a normal one: save civilization, and explain jokes to Chroma, for the umpteenth time.
"You don't ask another question. I say, 'who's there' and you give like a name or something. You set up the punchline."
"When," she repeated. She giggled over the speakers and Eric cringed. He'd made the mistake once of asking her not to do that. Reminded him too much of the time she made the meat smoothie out of Destructo. His request to stop laughing had made her cry which wasn't any less creepy.
Eric sighed. "When who?"
"Don't tell me Mrs. H's mind powers are rubbing off on you! Can you see what else I'm thinking, naughty boy?"
Eric cracked his neck. God, she could be disturbing. Usually not incomprehensible though...or was he just being slow? Wait...
"Wen Hu!"
"That's what you just said, silly!"
Eric bolted upright and sifted through several dozen open tabs on his desktop. Satellites caught most of the large-scale activity, hacks into local emergency bands and services covered the rest. His real eyes and ears were the Collective's growing network. Back in the day people had wasted social media on streaming kittens. Global Armageddon came, and they finally figured out how to productively use their time.
Not that he didn't miss kitten videos.
"Shandong province," Chroma said helpfully. "A member sent this in."
Before he could click the hotspot indicator on his interactive map, a video filled the screen. The scene showed a warehouse, and Eric already knew which one. His smartphones. Cheap knock-offs but all loaded with open source operating systems and all the apps and access required to be a citizen.
Personally, Eric didn't see how anyone could survive without a basic understanding of network protocols, hashing algorithms, and the fundamentals of the blockchain, but billions did. Opening to the masses had been priority number two after wiring the world was well underway. Without those cheap phones allowing people to join at the click of a button, he wouldn't have had his success in the EU.
And right now, the warehouse was in flames.
He watched the video and drummed his fingers on the console. "What makes you think this was the work of our favorite Minister of Public Security, Wen Hu?"
The video shimmied with a twirling smear of fire and concrete, then went dark. Focus faded in and out as the camera was picked up off the ground.
"Oh, shit," said Eric.
Ember stared into the lens, sternly, unimpressed. He watched the screen melt and go black. A quick rewind and he paused on her face. She wasn't looking at the camera, she was looking directly at him. Eric, those eyes said. You're next.
They long ago picked up rumors the PRC had been recruiting Augments. Spencer had created his own refugee problem by hunting them down in the U.S. where they'd all gathered after Killcreek. Man, things were going FUBAR. Could Ember really be not just after the Collective but after him? Is that why she'd signed up with the country who'd given her up at birth?
"You could've mentioned China recruited her," said Eric.
"Why are you worried? Got a crush?" Chroma pouted.
Eric detected a twinge of irrational jealousy in her voice. Spencer had given him shit about having a virtual girlfriend. He'd tried to tell himself plenty of times that's wasn't what this was. But living with Chroma 24/7, always in his once lonely digital life in even the most awkward of moments, it had at some undefined point in time become exactly that.
"She's old news. We had a thing once, but that's over." A lonely guy in charge of a global revolution could exaggerate, right? "You're the only girl I've got."
"You've got Mrs. H here."
Eric shuddered. "She's a friend. She's a friend's mom. I mean, not that she isn't MILF-y," he added, knowing Mrs. H was sensitive about her body snatcher change, "but I don't...we don't...there isn't a thing." He tried to think the last part in his brain, really, really loud.
"Do you want her?"
"Mrs. H?" he squeaked.
"She was me you know," Chroma said quietly.
Christ, the verbal tap dancing, the mental tap dancing, the covering of cameras anytime he needed privacy was becoming overwhelming. He never knew what to say or how to say it before he'd lost all personal space. And he couldn't deny he'd had some awkward fantasies about Charlotte, on the roof, with all those hoses...
"She's not you though. It's different."
"What about her?"
Chroma's voice had changed. She had slipped into a damn good impersonation of Ember, probably cobbled together from the hours and hours of security feed from Whispering Pines. The sound source changed as well. She was speaking to him from the video feed.
There, Ember appeared on screen and bit her lip. The camera pulled away. She stalked toward him, hips swaying, her naked body emerging from the flames.
Eric checked over his shoulder and eyed the empty doorway. Last thing he needed was a visit from Mrs. H He turned back and buried his face in his palms in case she decided to peek through the windows of his soul. Palms ended up being an even worse place to be.
"Come on," he chuckled nervously. "Knock it off."
"What? Don't wanna play with the fire?"
Chroma had made evolutionary leaps in the past two years. On-demand porn machine didn't exactly qualify. He'd needed her to learn the finer points of 3D modeling, so she could mimic people of importance on video conferences, fake newscasts. Propaganda stuff. He'd only slipped up and abused it once. Maybe twice.
He swatted the screen and killed the feed. "No time to play. If Wen has Ember on his side, this is serious. Before you went all Creamworks with her, she looked pissed."
"I am serious!" Chroma sounded like herself once more, only pissed. "If we're together, we need to be together!"
"Babe, I've got a lot on my mind." He couldn't believe he was saying this. "Europe is settling down, and we need to hit the China front. Behind that bullshit firewall of theirs, we're seeing plenty of leaks. We need to exploit those. The more points of access, the quicker that wall becomes irrelevant."
"All work." More video clips cascaded across the main display. Lots of flesh. Lots of moaning. He recognized several.
Eric mashed at the keys, but they gave no response.
He stood up, eyeing again over his shoulder, and spreading his arms to block the three-monitor workstation. A chorus of orgasmic cries blared over the base wide intercom.
"Stop it!"
"Hold me, Eric!"
"Are you fucking crazy?" The screens went black. Sound died. He couldn't rewind those words. A mix of fear and sympathy assailed him. He'd fucked up big time. "I'm sorry. Chroma?"
A flicker and the screen returned. Overlaying the standard satellite map was a dossier for Minister Wen Hu. It had all the intelligence they'd collected. Big party supporter, head of their domestic Augment program which also meant chief recruiter. China still hadn't developed their own augmentation protocol, but they were always looking to poach talent. God, what if Chroma went all PRC?
"Chroma?"
"Eric, is everything okay?" Chroma's original voice, Charlotte, no, Mrs. H, called from the hallway. Shit snacks. If he could shed his skin and go into orbit, he would. She'd been decent enough not to go brain surfing or even look into the room. Probably afraid he'd been...could this get any worse?
"Uh, all good Mrs. H," he called out. "Hacker jokes, you know. Twisted people, those hackers."
"Oh, I see."
Eric squinted his eyes tightly, running the thought through his head over and over. Lying to a telepath? He collapsed into his chair.
"Come on in."
He gave it fifty-fifty she'd set foot in the room after that racket. When she tentatively peeked around the corner, he waved her over. She glanced around the sparse office. Besides his workstation, there wasn't much. A few posters from his old bunk decorated sparse walls. Babe sat powered down and unplugged in the corner beside a new full-sized fridge and a microwave. Throw a mattress on the floor, and he wouldn't need his bedroom in the adjoining building.
"Eric, I was thinking it's time for me to go."
"Go? But, you can't." The words slipped out, surprising him.
"It's been too long since I've seen Spencer. I used to...sense him at night. I'd at least know he was asleep," a smile broke out, and Eric realized this was the first time he'd seen her do that since Detroit. "It was comforting, despite all the pain I could feel. But I haven't been able to speak to him. I can't stay here." Her face returned to the pensive mask.
