She said nothing for some time, keeping her eyes closed, body quivering.
“I’m interested in your God,” I said, “the internet God.”
Patricia scoffed, “if you’re looking for salvation, it’s too late.”
“Maybe,” I said, “probably. But I’m still interested in what this God is like.”
Patricia sighed, not saying anything for a few moments until, “what do you want to know?”
“I’m curious. If God is the internet – a digital construct – then what does that make the soul?”
“The internet is a digital incarnation of God,” Patricia said, “the same way that Jesus was God incarnate as flesh, the internet is God incarnate as information. The soul is information, which exists on a higher plane than flesh. God came to us in the form of pure information now that we are ready for God in this higher form, and She will bring perfect happiness those who believe in Her grace and love.”
“And that makes mesh networks…”
“False idols,” Patricia said, “they take people away from God incarnated as information.”
“But wasn’t the internet created by humans?”
“Jesus was born of a human woman,” Patricia said, “but that doesn’t mean He wasn’t God incarnated as flesh.”
“I’m guessing God wanted access to the Global Prosperity Network?” I asked, “that’s why you used me to get to it?”
She said nothing.
“How did someone figure all this out, though?”
Patricia opened her eyes, staring blankly at the door into the rickety hallway. “There was a point when the Anonymous Knights were part of a secular group of hackers. They were much like we are. Decentralized. People would act on their own, but do it in the name of a greater cause. Many of the things they did in the name of our cause were not moral and often hurt the cause. But some of them found something online. Right around the time Shirou’s virus caused the blackout in Japan eighteen years ago.”
“So, God is Shirou’s virus?” I asked.
“Some believe that Shirou is the prophet God used to bring Her Wrath for our use,” Patricia said, “others just think that God gave Shirou that virus to use. Still others think Shirou was evil and tried to trap God and keep Her from everyone else.”
I almost wanted to laugh, thinking of Shirou as a prophet or antichrist. The image of him strung out on methamphetamine, shaking as he lay down on a cot in the back of a dank electronics store, didn’t look like someone obeying a celestial will. But I felt I was gaining at least some of Patricia’s trust.
“You’re a true believer, aren’t you?” I asked, kneeling down to come eye-to-eye with her.
“With all my heart,” Patricia said, turning to meet my gaze.
“Show me,” I said, “show me where I can find your God. I’ll let you go.”
She turned her head to look at me again, “you would have to talk to someone with more knowledge about that than me.”
“The scrambled voice,” I said, leaning in closer, “maybe whoever you sent everyone else to see?”
Patricia looked away again.
“You sent them to a decoy,” I said, “but you do know someone around here that I could talk to, right? Whoever you had my tech transmitting to? The Scrambled voice?”
Patricia looked back to me, eyes anxious. She said nothing, putting her head back to the mattress and closing her eyes. She didn’t completely trust me yet, and I didn’t want to push her too hard on the issue. If I showed desperation, it would make it look like I was playing her.
So, we sat in silence for some time, listening to waves smacking against the outside walls. After a time, there was a crescendo of raindrops hitting the roof, amplified by the lack of any insulation on the loft.
It was almost twenty minutes before Patricia raised her head and said, “We’re not far. I’ll take you to see him if you let me go. If you don’t give me back to the trannies.”
“Of course,” I said.
I grabbed the pistol I’d taken from Patricia during the fight and stuffed it into my pants. I then proceeded to cut the tape from Patricia’s ankles and help her up. She leaned on me as we made our way down the hall. Darren looked up at us as he sat in him room, cuffed to the wall, but he said nothing. Patricia moaned as we went down the stairs and exited out into the rain. The late afternoon was made dark with thick clouds overhead, the hurricane approaching. Droplets of water splattered over us as I supported Patricia’s weight.
“Supposed to be a bad one?” I asked, looking up at the clouds.
“No,” she groaned, “the second one behind this is supposed to be, though.”
We started down the floating pathway, taking the other fork once we got there. The walk wasn’t too long of a distance, but it took quite a bit of time with Patricia leaning against me and the pathway swaying over the waves.
At the end of the pathway, we came upon a short canoe moored to the last pontoon. I helped her into the boat and got in after her, grabbing a paddle and following her directions of where to go. We passed by roofs protruding from the water, their waterlogged fences and cars dimly visible beneath us in the murky waters.
“You do know that if you’re lying to me, he’ll kill you,” Patricia said.
I grunted but said nothing, using my free hand to adjust the polymer pistol held up against me.
It took us forty-five minutes to get to the house Patricia pointed out, fighting against the wind, waves, and my injured hand. What I found was another slapdash structure erected on top of a submerged house, made even uglier with strong rebar fortifications on the outside of the thick wooden panels and pointed, aerodynamic roofing. Four wind turbines stuck up from the water at each corner of the house, spinning wildly in the oncoming storm, power lines stretching between them and the house.
I helped Patricia out of the canoe and onto the floating deck in front of the structure before knocking on the door, letting her lean on me. It took about a minute for someone to answer it. When I saw their face, I gasped. The man standing before me was Randy Fuller, thirty-two years older. And time had not been kind to him.
He looked at Patricia, pity in his eyes, then said, “Thank you for bringing my daughter back to me,” then looking at me, “and it’s good to see you again, too.”
Chapter 46
“You know who I am?” I asked as Randy stepped out of the way, letting us in.
“That’s a funny question,” Randy said, shutting the door and hobbling after us over the creaky floor, bent over on a cane, “does anyone really know who you are?”
I took Patricia to a couch at the back wall, ducking beneath the conic ceiling, and lowered her rain-soaked body onto it. Afterwards I turned and looked around the room, lit by dim, naked fluorescents powered by the wind turbines. The walls were distorted by lumps of some kind of cloudy polymer that I assumed was to waterproof the structure, although I could still see a few spots on the floor stained with damp and mildew. One corner of the room was fashioned into a kitchen area with an old refrigerator and microwave. Computer drives, beer and liquor bottles, and food wrappers strewn about the floor seemed to orbit a recliner chair sitting in the middle of the room beneath the steeple point of the ceiling. A table with six small monitors sat to the side of the recliner, some showing stills from security footage. I recognized myself in a couple of them.
He’s been tracking us since we got across the border.
Randy himself looked worse than he should. He could only be in his sixties, but years of hard living left him in much worse condition. His skin was pale and splotchy, a rat’s nest of thin, gray hair covered his scalp, his once muscular stature now thin, flabs of loose skin clinging to bones. He looked more like ninety.
“What happened to my daughter?” Randy asked, sitting down on the threadbare recliner and picking up an already opened beer.
“She seems to have wandered onto our family vacation,” I said, “It was a misunderstanding. How do you know who I am?”
&
nbsp; “Benecorp,” Randy said, “they keep tight security, but any system can be hacked, given enough people and enough time.” He paused a moment and then said, “Or at least that’s what I once thought.”
“What do they know?” I asked, still standing next to the couch behind Randy’s chair.
“You think I’m just going to tip my hand to you that easily?” Randy let out something between a laugh and a cough, “information is currency. I don’t just give it away. If my daughter led you here, I can only assume it means you have some information I might want.”
“I gave you your daughter back,” I said, “I think that has the currency scale tipped in my favor.”
Randy sighed, “I suppose you’re right,” he looked over his shoulder, narrowing his eyes at Christina, “not in good condition, though. I assume your friends are looking into a decoy lead?”
“They are,” I said, walking over and standing right in front of Randy, “what did you find out about me from Benecorp?”
“Only that there are three people who are reincarnated every time they die,” he said, eyes staying on me, “and that two of them are leading the forty-eights terrorist group. I know you and one of the Japanese women are the ones this happens to, so I had a fifty-fifty shot at being right that you were the one I knew as Marcy Riviera.” Randy took a deep breath. “All I know is that their project surrounding this reincarnation thing is enormous, but I wasn’t able to get much more out of it,” he coughed, “all of the people that were able to hack their system have since been killed.”
“So, the AKs know about reincarnation?”
He shook his head, “not all of them. But I knew you from your previous life…that was how I put the pieces together based on what I’ve learned from Benecorp.”
“Then nothing you’ve told me is anything I didn’t already know.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Asset A,” I said, “were you able to find anything about her from Benecorp?”
“I’ve heard of an Asset A,” he said, “but I don’t know anything about it. It’s a person, I take it?”
“A woman,” I said, “being held by the PRA.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head.
“Are you the one controlling the scrambled voice?”
He took a deep breath, a subtle hint of disappointment flashed across his face. His eyes told me the answer. I continued staring at him, saying nothing. After a few moments of quiet, only the sound of wind and waves against the outer walls, he cleared his throat.
“Anything else?”
I sighed. “Whatever you can tell me about the AKs. Maybe some way to get the CSA network we were setting up back online?”
“The Anonymous Knights…” he took a mouthful of his beer, pausing for a few moments before continuing. “You know, I’ve thought about Marcy a lot since she disappeared all those years ago. It made me so angry to hear Marcy spout off about that reincarnation business. It…took me years to realize I wasn’t angry that she believed such bullshit. I realized I was angry because I didn’t have anything to believe in myself. As nutty as she was back then, I could see that sense of purpose in her eyes when she talked about that student. It was a…a spiritual happiness, for lack of a better word. A type of happiness I’d never felt in my life. Especially after getting out of the military.”
“Mike.”
“Yes,” Randy said, taking another swallow of beer, “Mike. I assume he came back as one of the Japanese chicks?”
“Yes…” I said, feeling impatient.
“I’m glad you found each other again,” Randy said, focusing on the beer bottle in his hand, oblivious to my tone. “But it was that realization – the feeling of purposelessness – that got me to adopt Marlene from a former student of mine,” he glanced over at his daughter passed out on the couch, eyes closed, dreadlocks falling about her battered face.
I almost laughed, knowing she still hadn’t told the truth about her name. Of course, Randy could be using an alias now to keep her safe. Either way, it didn’t matter.
“Did that work?” I asked.
“In making me happy?” He said, “For a while. But I realized that as fulfilling as it might be for me, it wasn’t right for her.”
“So that made you go and join a cult?”
Randy laughed, “This cult, as you put it, is the only thing that ever made sense to me. It’s all I’ve had for so long. You know, pretty much everyone you knew has moved away from here.” Randy looked at his daughter again, her breathing shallow. He took out a cigarette and lit it, blowing the cloud out toward me. “She’ll be okay, won’t she?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “physically probably.”
“You think I ruined her mind,” Randy said, taking the last drink of his beer before another drag on his cigarette, “not everyone can deal with meaninglessness the way you can.”
“I deal with it because I have to,” I said, “you’re lucky you’ll die and escape it.”
Randy sat quiet a moment, pondering this. He raised his beer bottle as if to take another sip, realizing it was empty. “Maybe you can grab me another beer,” Randy said, “My legs ain’t what they used to be.”
I sighed and started walking slowly into his kitchen, opening the fridge. There was almost nothing else in it except beer and a half empty handle of vodka.
“Last I’d heard, your sister had a stroke,” Randy said as I came back in, handing the beer to him, “that daughter of her’s moved out at the beginning of devolution. Moved Silvana out west with her. Dunno what happened after that. Dunno where all your friends went, either.”
He threw his head back, chugging almost half the beer while I stood watching. He swallowed and then said, “now it’s your turn. Why don’t you tell me why my daughter brought you here.”
“I told her that I want to talk to God,” I said.
Randy glanced at Patricia or Marlene or whoever she was – his daughter – and then took another drink of beer, but said nothing as he looked back to me.
“You’ve never been a true believer,” I said.
Randy sighed, taking another look at his daughter, “No. I wanted to be. I tried really hard to be. But…I’ve only ever felt empty. Until…”
“Until what?”
“Until I spoke to ‘God’,” he croaked through his laugh-coughing.
“What are you talking about?”
“Susan Dewitt,” he said, coughing.
“What does Dewitt have to do with the AK’s internet God?”
“You haven’t figured it out?” he asked, “there is no Susan Dewitt. She doesn’t exist. She never has. She’s a complete digital fiction.”
“That’s what Catherine Landon was beginning to suspect,” I said, “so, you think she really is your internet God?”
He grunted, “don’t be absurd. Someone has gone through a lot of trouble to create her. To make up a person who exists only online. And who knows how many other non-people are out there on the web.”
“I assume you know of the others?” I asked, “Angela Garcia? Georg Ivanovic? Abu Nassar? Nguyen Ho Diem?”
“Yeah…”
“Meaning it’s all one big lie,” I said.
He shrugged, taking a sip of beer.
“Who’s controlling them?”
“Benecorp.”
“Something you found sending dozens of kids to hack them for you?”
He coughed. “The technology they use for their servers,” he said, “those drives you spent a lot of time searching for on the internet.”
The hack Akira accidentally put on our network…he pretty much knows everything.
“What about them?”
“They’re adapted from technology Benecorp developed a couple decades ago,” Randy said, “it was cutting edge neuromorphic computing back then. But these ones…they’re even more advanced.”
“How so?”
“Not only is each server more powerful than anything else I’m aware of,” he said, �
�but I’ve recently discovered that each server acts as a node – a neuron – for a second layer of a neuromorphic computing. The computing power is exponentially beyond what I originally thought it was.”
“For what purpose?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” he said, “if Benecorp has a technological advantage this enormous, no other corporation, no other government, nothing will stand in their way of global dominance.”
Was that Lind and Imelda’s plan? Global dominance?
“And now you think the AKs were duped by Benecorp,” I said, “to follow fake internet gods and unwittingly do their bidding.”
He took a deep breath, letting it out slow. “We’ve been taking down mesh networks for them. That would help them track everyone and know everything about them. And now they’re able to take down the Global Prosperity Network.”
“If Benecorp is using the AKs to funnel everyone back onto the internet,” I said, “then how does Shift play into all this? That’s the thing I can’t quite figure out.”
He furrowed his brow, confused. “I don’t know what you mean. I’ve never touched the stuff.”
“The AKs are helping spread it,” I said, “they were trying to get it into Mexico.”
He shook his head, “I’m not saying they aren’t, but I’ve never been a part of that. But it’s decentralized. Some might be making money off it.”
“Decentralized,” I scoffed, “just another way of saying the AKs lie to each other as much as they lie to everyone else. Probably more. And the lies the AKs are spreading – that you are spreading – are making the world a worse place for everyone. That’s worse than meaningless. You’re helping hand the world over to Benecorp.”
He sat without saying anything, breathing heavily. His head bobbed around with intoxication, listening to the wind howling, waves lapping up against the outside walls.
Finally, he spoke. “You’re right. I…don’t know what to think anymore,” he took a sip of beer, “unlike you, I get only one life…and I wasted it on a lie.”
“Dad?” Marlene said from the couch.
Randy gave me a glance before looking over to the couch where his daughter lay.
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