by Gentry Race
A faint sound could be heard from the distance, growing louder. Arthur rushed to the window and raised the plastic window flap to see a small young woman approaching. She had light brown hair, was soaked to bone, and ran full speed towards them.
It was Solari.
His eyes lit up as he turned to his wife. “Liz! It’s Sol!”
Elizabeth dropped her hairbrush, running behind Arthur as he exited their home. Arthur caught Solari in an embracing hug, jolting her momentum to an abrupt halt. Elizabeth followed quickly behind, holding her dress up to keep it from catching her feet. The moment she reached them, she wrapped Sol in a crushing hug.
“Look what crazy brought back,” Arthur said.
Arthur and Elizabeth’s home had always felt odd to Solari. She was always interested by the rickety contraptions Arthur hung on the walls, but it felt cluttered and chaotic to her. Imperfect.
Arthur noticed Solari’s second skin was inactive. “They took your access?”
“Who’s making it?” Solari asked, disregarding his inquiry.
“Making what?”
“Erratum are getting worse and undetectable. I know you or Elise have something to do with it.”
“You haven’t seen us in years, and that’s all you have to say?” Arthur said as he tried to calm her.
“Elise! Is it her?” Solari demanded to know.
Arthur’s eyes sank as his face turned to disappointment. This wasn’t the happy reunion he’d hoped for.
“Listen, I know you guys have something to do with it. There are only a few ex-Neos you hear of that muck around with iridium, Arthur.”
“It’s Dad,” Arthur scolded her.
An uncomfortable silence filled the air as father and daughter stared one another down. He was excited to see her, but he wasn’t about to let her forget where she came from. They were family.
After a few uncomfortable moments, Arthur sighed and turned, motioning for his daughter to follow him. Elizabeth smiled at her daughter, reaching out to give her another squeezing hug before they followed him inside.
“Have a seat,” he said, gesturing toward an empty seat as Elizabeth made her way around them.
Elizabeth prepared a hot drink while Solari tried not to recall memories of the place she grew up. “How did you make a device to memCache the Conscious?”
“My dear, I have not made anything that would prohibit PSYOP’s business ventures,” Arthur said.
“That’s bullshit, Arthur. If they find you making it, they will Axiom all of us. Where is she?”
Arthur looked onto the horizon as subtle billows of dirt rolled into the sky. He knew their simple life on Annulus would be over if he didn’t tell. “Your sister has an erratum, Sol.”
Solari was stunned to hear. If anyone found out, she would be done for. “Which, means you might have one,” Arthur continued.
“Where is she?” Solari asked coldly.
He sighed, sitting back. “The Dream Farms.”
Her eyes widened, her entire body stiffening. “That cult in the Lower Dregs?” she yelped.
“We all make sense of the world around us differently, Sol. The Mesons--”
“Save it, Arthur. I know you defected from Neology, but you won’t defect me from my life,” Solari snapped.
“Do you really believe hunting down eradicates are beneficial for the soul?” Elizabeth asked carefully.
Solari remained silent, holding back the questions that troubled her mind. Finally, she weeded through her jumbled thoughts and chose her next words. “Eradicates have no place in the next stage of digitization. At least on Annulus, we can find them and help them.
“We only want to help you,” Arthur added.
“You can help by staying out of this,” Solari said before standing and walking out.
Elizabeth thought to go after her, but Arthur stopped her from following as Solari left the Far Side without saying goodbye—again.
Jantzen tongued the new set of teeth inside his mouth. They protruded behind his lips, but they looked fine in the mirror he held. He focused on the tattoo just below his neck, a dragon’s head that snaked down to hide under his shirt. He wondered how he would feel once he acquired his new body and lost his ink. He would be unable to get another tattoo ever again due to the constant regenerative process.
“How do you feel?” Elise asked, interrupting his thoughts as she entered the room.
“Fine. How about you? You’re the one with a vendetta,” Jantzen said.
Elise fell silent, straightening the instrumentation among the shelves. Her OCD urged, showing itself in her subtle actions.
“You never finished telling me why,” Jantzen probed.
“Why what?”
“Why do you want to destroy someone who’s done nothing but good for his citizens?”
Elise stopped cleaning and crossed her arms, leaning against the shelves in frustration. “I didn’t want to tell you before but….”
“Tell me what?”
“Chellis hired me to make the memCache,” Elise blurted out.
“That designer drug people are slanging all around? You know that stuff made it to Earth? Mods are using it to see all kinds of shit.”
“Yeah, well, Chellis hired me to make it.”
“But why?”
“It hides erratum. I think he’s hiding an erratum himself. It’s the only answer,” she responded.
“We go back awhile, but I gotta say, this is one of the most ridiculous ideas you’ve had so far. Chellis—”
“It’s true,” Elise said passionately. “And there’s more.”
“What?”
Her left hand fidgeted with the right as she looked at them, taking a few precious moments to consider her words. “I didn’t want to tell you, or you wouldn’t have come…”
His eyes narrowed as he stared at her, worried for his friend. “You’re scaring the shit out of me.”
She looked up and made her way over, her eyes locked on his. “I think he’s archiving us.”
“Yeah, that way we can reprint and reset. Collection Consciousness, live forever, you know?”
“Yeah, but all great civilizations were built on the backs of slaves,” Elise said, firmly.
Jantzen paused for a moment, gauging Elise’s facial expression. Her face was perfect in every sense, just like what Jantzen wanted for himself. The moment faded when he erupted into laughter. “That’s a good one.”
She sighed and shook her head. “Never mind.” Visibly annoyed, she turned her back to him and began to walk away.
Jantzen stood, extending his hand to stop her. “I’m sorry. Listen, you can do whatever you want with your nanites. You just give me this fresh start, okay?”
Elise empathized with his situation. Jantzen had always been a knucklehead, and this was his chance to have a new life. “No worries. Come with me, and I’ll take you the Upper Cruft. You can find your fixer there, and he’ll set you up in line.”
14
A persistent drizzle fell from the simulated cloud cover overhead in the outer faction of Annulus. The Upper Cruft was the antecedent to catch the fresh rain washing off the filth down to the Lower Dregs where the slum pooled in vats of human stink. Annulus controlled the weather and kept a constant shower on the Mods waiting for Naturalization to deepen the psychological effect and clean the streets.
Solari sidestepped the funk as she moved deeper into the Dregs. Several refugees huddled over fires, toasting food that was hacked and nPrinted from a buggy code. A homeless Mod laid on the ground, a half-eaten spongy cake with a red jelly filling in his hand. These cake gels kept the lowest level citizens from starving.
“The Mesons are gracious today,” he said, looking up at the rainy sky. He was thankful there wasn’t a torrential downpour.
Solari disregarded his remark since she knew Annulus controlled the weather, and drizzle meant they weren’t being punished. She bent down closer to the Mod. His face was hardened with plugs that extended from th
e surface of his head, falling under his blanket.
“Do you dream?” Solari asked the hobo.
The homeless Mod blank expression changed. “I’m human, aren’t I?”
Solari acknowledged the answer but moved on. “Tell me where I can find the farms.”
“You looking to buzz or grow an idea?” the homeless Mod asked. He pulled out a device, adjusting the wires that connected to his mind. He admired the perfection of Solari’s skin.
“I am looking for someone,” Solari said.
The homeless Mod snuggled his device back under his blanket. “The farm isn’t a place here. It’s a connection. The place you can see in your dreams.”
“Where can I find the physical servers?”
The homeless Mod nestled into his bed, now noticing her second skin was not active. “Can’t jack in, eh? Must have did something bad.”
Solari grabbed his hand, squeezing the red jelly cake to mush. She twisted it back and pulled tight on the bunched wires extending from the side of his head.
“Tell me where I can find the farms,” she ordered forcefully, letting the stressors build inside.
“Agh, you can’t! You need a connection!”
“Bullshit. I can ping the location. Where can I splice in?”
“You jack in without credentials, and you’ll be the next brainstorm to wreak havoc,” he cried out in pain.
“Tell me!”
“The Lucky Landyte. Three terraces down!”
Solari paused for a moment, thinking about what the Mod said. She then ripped the wires from the Mod’s head, pulling the small box out from under his blanket.
“A storm is coming,” she said, walking away from the yelping Mod left in the drizzle.
The Lucky Landyte was a crude model that supplemented welfare items to the less fortunate Mods lingering for Naturalization. The landyte’s tendrils sprouted upward into the sky, searching for the feed source. From the soot covered branches above, hundreds of bunched wires ran down into a port and underground, connecting to Annulus’s vast wetwork.
A crowd of Mods laid at the base of the landyte’s rooted system, jacked in with intentionally crossed wires. Their eyes bobbed back and forth under their eyelids while electricity danced around their heads as they buzzed.
Solari plopped to her knees, spliced one of the Mods wire connections, and inserted the stolen jack. She needed to ping the farms. Pinging was similar to echo location where the address was bounced back to the user who sent it. She typed in a series of numbers, and the words ECHO_REQUEST immediately replied coordinates, revealing the farm’s signal.
It was Axiom.
It made little sense. Solari sat under a drooping half-beaten awning as the rain continued in a steady drizzle. Her mind was exhausted. How could the ping come from Axiom?
Worry of not finding the source brought self-doubt to Solari’s consciousness. She looked around at the filth and sediment the Dregs had collected over the years. Trash swept along the walls in gusts of vile proxies.
Life was just a proxy down here, she thought.
“That’s it! A proxy!” Solari sprang up, shooting back to the landyte.
She sent the request again, but this time it was followed by more numbers and letters issuing a bypass on any virtual private wetworks. A set of new coordinates came back leading to a Farm server in the Neon District.
The crowded alleyway ahead was lit by an assortment of neon lights posted by various storefronts. This was the Neon District of the Lower Dregs. Hollygrams animated advertisement loops from limb upgrades to virtual sex parlors. This place had a price, and if you had info, you had an experience.
Solari pulled a cloak off a passed out homeless Mod and wrapped herself up to hide her perfect complexion. The fabric was pungent from organisms that thrived on the skin cells of the Modded humans. She was thankful for her nanites.
A group of refugees known as fixers stood at the entrance of the alleyway. Solari knew they received kickbacks for bringing new Mods to their establishments. She watched a thin man hustling a group passing by.
He had various cybernetic enhancements and hexagonal patterned tattoos on his chest. One tattoo,—two lips pressed together—was more prominent than the others and rested just above the spot where his collarbones met on his throat. A hole was punctured between the lips that lead into the esophagus.
He puffed a cigarette while smoke exited the hole. His demeanor was sketchy, and he had a hint of the shakes. Those were the side effects of too many buzzes.
“I need to find the Farms.”
“Sure thing, lady. The name’s Trake. I’ll take ya there,” Trake said with an almost robotic voice. He pointed to the opening in his throat.
“I want the physical servers. Not the virtual space.”
“The servers, eh? Looking to trash someone’s dreams? I’m cool with that lady.” He looked around carefully.
Solari followed Trake as he dodged past the droves of Mods pushing their way up the Neon District. He moved fast as he navigated what was obviously a normal routine. They came to a hostess dressed in a revealing corset, dress, and stockings standing out front of a dodgy club. A curious bulge protruded awkwardly beneath the tight dress, which Trake took notice of.
“In the Farm, she’s a he,” Trake whispered in Solari’s ear.
Solari heard of people hashing their identities while in Farms, and their sex as the title trans humanist worked on more levels than one.
Trake leaned in and whispered to the hostess, and her eyes lit up as she looked at Solari. “Hi, I’m Molly. So, you want to see the cow show?”
Solari looked back at Trake. He nodded, urging her to take the hint.
“Yes, the cow show,” Solari said awkwardly.
Molly escorted them into a bar with a round stage in the center of the room lit in red lights. She watched a heavily tattooed girl take off her cybernetic legs while springing into a full dismount onto her hands before twirling. Modded men yelled obscenities from all around the rack while holding two-dollar notes painted in red.
“Come,” Molly said, walking up a spiraled staircase.
She arrived at a green lit room, and four Mod Pods each housed a helmet apparatus connected to myriad of wires that connected into the walls. Two bodies laid there lifelessly jacked in. Their clothes had been carelessly put on.
Molly shut the door and locked it behind her. Solari caught her glance as she looked at Trake, signaling a nod in agreement.
“This is a loading bay to the Farms,” Molly said.
“What program?” Solari asked firmly.
Molly walked over to Solari, admiring her skin. The other woman’s eyes held an uncomfortable focus on Solari’s body. “It’s called Lights Out.”
Trake grabbed Solari from the back, holding her arms tightly. “Easy there, missy. Molly only wants to show you the farm.”
Solari kicked Molly in the groin. She fell to the floor, holding her once prized possessions. Solari tried to break the full nelson, but Trake’s cyber-Modded grip was too strong.
Trake lifted Solari’s body while she kicked wildly. Her vision clouded as she grew more stressed, and she was able to slip out of the hold. A Mod was no match for her speed. By the time he realized she’d escaped, she was behind him. Instinctively, she grabbed him by the neck and pulled back as she twisted, flipping him over backwards to land hard on the floor.
“You bitch!” Molly called out, her pain finally waning. She pulled a small dagger from her high heeled boots and pointed it at Solari. “I’m gonna reset your ass.”
Solari ran straight at her, sliding between Molly’s legs before breaking through the door. She peered down the long hallway that connected with a spiral staircase and adjacent rooms. Turning to look back for a moment, she saw the door had already reprinted and the knob jiggled. Molly still wanted her. Sol instinctively looked at her worthless arm band. She had nowhere to go. Any minute, Molly would break down the door.
A calm feeling swept over her
body. She stumbled and felt something move against her arm. Looking down, she realized something hadn’t touched her. Instead, it was sticking out of her. A familiar double cross shaped syringe hung from her skin.
She groaned, realizing she’d been caught. Her movements grew even more sluggish, and she looked around for her attacker. Without a doubt, she knew they would come fetch their prey shortly.
As she tried to focus her cloudy vision, a blurry figure stepped down the hallway and lowered a smoking barrel of a gun.
“E-Elise,” she managed to choke out before she blacked out.
15
Jantzen felt out of place in this new world as he explored the Upper Cruft. His mouth still hurt like hell after the procedure, and his lips still needed to adjust to the new set of false teeth. Despite being the middle class of the station, he still felt like he was treated differently. Is this because of skin color?
His skin seemed to be a darker shade on Annulus due to the station only receiving fifty percent of the sunlight reflected from Earth. The Earthshine made for a surreal dark setting Jantzen wasn’t used to. Everything was lit up by artificial neon lights to compensate. He wondered if anyone had mental fatigue due to the low lighting conditions.
Jantzen walked along the many connecting bridgeways that extended across above the Lower Dregs. He could smell the funk of human sweat wafting up from below. He was on his way to meet a fixer. Elise had set him up with one of the best, promising that Jantzen would be able to jump the line to be Naturalized; a task that could take some Mods years to do.
Jantzen arrived at the bright neon sign that read MoTH Bar. Here, he was supposed to order a tiki style drink called ‘the jerk.’ Jantzen wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen after that, but he didn’t care. The people there were his kind of people, his kind of scene. The bar was probably full of past bunk mates he knew from jail.
As he walked into an empty bar, a crewman ordered a band of workers around in the back of what seemed to be an active remodeling. Mirror sheathes were all around as the crewmen ripped and broke the mirrors as if to repair the seedy bar. Jantzen took a seat at the empty bar and waved, signaling to the bartender.