The Ghosts We Hide

by Micah Thomas

  Hakim sat silently, expression blank except for a faint smile.

  “You summoned me, sir?” Sanders prompted.

  “Walk with me?”

  They left the audience hall through a door in the back which opened to an elevated garden with large pools of water bleeding off into the edge. Somewhere below, there would be a shower of rain. Planters lined the walkway with trees dripping with fruits of all colors, none of which were familiar to Sanders.

  “You know I have breakfast out here, and there is an open invite to all the regional leaders.”

  “I’m aware.”

  “But you never come.”

  “The morning meal is a ritual I’ve shared with my husband for many years.”

  “Ah, Domestic happiness. Your private time. Yes.” Hakim gently touched an alien fruit hanging from a vine. It was a strange juxtaposition in a garden shared with apples, oranges, and pineapples.

  “Life is beautiful.”

  Sanders didn’t think he had a reply and merely nodded along.

  “We had nothing like this before.”

  We, Sanders thought. Which ‘we’ exactly did Hakim mean?

  “Ah, yes. Both of us—the man I was and the thing I am,” Hakim said, casually reading Sanders’ mind.

  “For one of us, tactility, ripe fruit, and consumption, are entirely outside the scope of our former existence. For the other, scarcity and class division, global supply chain logistics and the relics of imperialism had designated us as poverty, practically property. We want no one to feel that way anymore—not here.”

  “You’ve been very good to us. No one in your city wants for anything except when they choose to do so.”

  “True. Largely true. But there is one I am unable to help. One tastes neither fruit nor flesh nor even this sweet honeysuckle air.”

  Hakim led the way through to the end of garden where there was a door Sanders had never seen. They were deeper beyond the facade of the palace than Sanders even knew existed. Certainly, there were no official functions operating down these wide, lofty halls.

  Hakim stopped before an almost mundane door, given the ostentatious surroundings. A staff entrance at a fancy hotel.

  “Are you ready?” Hakim asked.

  Sanders didn’t know what to be ready for, but he nodded.

  The room was larger than the audience hall. A vast ceiling, shrouded in darkness hung above them. Corners and bounds were hidden in shade. The walls were decorated with fine classical art. The cicada sound quieted and the room took on a strange, muffled silence.

  Sanders followed Hakim’s gesture as he pointed up, high up in the shadows of the impossibly tall room. Something was up there, glowing crimson and blackish purple. The shape descended and Sanders saw how incredibly large this form was. Thirty feet? More? He had no frame of reference for what he saw, but his imagination settled on a jelly fish. Translucent, a vibrant inner life, an intangibility; energies cycling and buzzing within.

  Sanders felt a wave of intense probing and clutched at Hakim in an unaccustomed moment of physical contact between them.

  “Isn’t she beautiful?” Hakim said of the thing.

  “What is that?” Sanders teetered on the brink of madness. The thing was reaching into his mind. His eyes couldn’t focus on it. Every instinct told him to run away.

  “My consort. My queen. Forced into this world against her will by the actions of an old fool.” Hakim removed Sanders arm, leaving him to fall to his knees. Hakim strode towards the pulsing entity and Sanders could not keep his eyes open. His mind was overwhelmed by the potency of these beings. He felt like Moses on the mountain receiving the word of god, but there was no message. They are the gods, his panicked thoughts screamed.

  Even with his eyes squeezed closed, Sanders could feel the light diminish and sanity return to his mind.

  “Stand up now, you silly man,” Hakim said, again standing beside Sanders. “You were in no danger.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Hakim walked them back out of the room.

  “We need someone to host my love,” he explained. “She is incomplete in this state. Not anyone will do. The mechanisms which brought Wiseman fully into your plane—and the others, and me as well—need repeating.”

  “I don’t know anything about how it worked. Surely, you know better than me.”

  “Don’t presume to know my mind, Sanders.”

  “I didn’t. What I mean is, how can I help?”

  Hakim smiled. “You will find the one I seek. You will bring them to me. Other than that, keep up the good work.”

  The audience was over. Sanders returned to the office when he would have rather gone home. This special project was deeply upsetting. Say he did create some survey seeking candidates, would they even know the cost of such a transaction? He didn’t want to be in this role. Shouldn’t be in this role. This was not law and order. He checked the incident report, and to his surprise, saw a rainbow bridge had fallen that day. No casualties, but very unusual. Sanders would let engineering look into it. Not his problem. He was busy with minor crimes and compelled complicity in whatever it was Hakim wanted. And today had started off so great.

  ***

  Across town, Thelon’s latest party was a few hours from show time. Thelon didn’t get nervous; he got ready. The excitement before a big performance was his fuel. His rag tag team had been throwing elite parties for ages, but this was going to be his first major public spectacle. Land this right, and he’d be famous. There’d be demand for him to do a global event next. The big show. A multi-city simul cast. Big dreams. He spent the afternoon walking the venue, the old school, practically ancient International Amphitheatre. Lots of major acts had played here in the old days—even the Beatles. He couldn’t believe no one was using it anymore. He read the bronze memorial plaque in the lobby. It said they were going to tear it down in 1999, but the place had been purchased by some recluse millionaire and sealed up instead. Fuck ‘em. This was a big-ass, old place and he was going to rock it.

  People were lazy pieces of shit, happy to stream content straight to their cortex from home or from the experience pods to relive memories. Fuck who they wanted to fuck, try out a death scene or two. The last creeped Thelon out. Stupid idiots found a way to make their own simulated death entertainment through virtualized murders and other shit like replicated heart attacks—things that didn’t happen anymore. What they need is to remember how to have fun. That’s why I’m doing this, Thelon thought.

  “It’s gonna be epic,” Dean, the tech guru to Thelon’s idea man said.

  “It better be.” Thelon didn’t need anyone to stroke his ego.

  Thelon surveyed the light tech, full holograms, mood enhancing aromatic dispensers, and emotive clouds timed with the music. This was what he lived for—entertaining—because somewhere in the back of their minds, they’d know he did this. The musical equipment had analog modulators for a raw and real sound. The depth was incredible. He wanted this to be a tactile experience; a juxtaposition to their synth life.

  He felt a tap on his shoulder and flinched. For a fleeting second, he thought for sure the crackhead from the other day would be there, ready to scratch his eyes out. But no. It was his girlfriend, Furie. She wore her blonde hair in elaborate braids. Thelon thought she looked like a barbarian shield maiden and he loved it. She gave him a kiss on the cheek. She’d been with Thelon for the last year, moving from Europe to Chicago to be with him. She still had that eastern bloc accent, which was sexy as hell to Thelon.

  “Hey, babe,” she said. “The word is out. We might even get some uptowners in tonight.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. Took a little doing, but we penetrated the data network for the major marketplaces. Got a major streamer to promote us. They’ve never had anything like this. It’ll blow their minds.”

  “Fuck yeah.”

  He knew he took her for granted, but why not? She was more than a hanger on, but Thelon suspected—same as most of
his associates—that she got more out of him than he did her.

  Thelon wanted to get a little alone time before the show. Clear his head. “Let’s go back to my place.”

  She smiled and Thelon knew she knew what he wanted. She’d want to talk after, but he only wanted a release and the post-orgasm clarity. It wasn’t a long walk over to his place, but long enough to smoke half a joint on the way.

  Once they were sweaty and done with love, Furie dressed. “You really are something,” she said.

  “I amuse you, don’t I?”

  “Don’t you ever want to get away? Throwing parties all the time. You’re king shit now—isn’t that enough? I mean, we can do anything. Go almost anywhere.”

  “Go somewhere and grow old together, you mean?” he teased.

  “Not that!”

  “Honey, I’m never getting old.”

  “You want to go together? To the show?”

  “Naw. I need a minute.”

  Furie kissed the top of Thelon’s head and gave him his privacy. Alone, he sat on his bed and tried to clear his mind. It’s another night. No big deal. I’ve got this. He had a bad feeling again. That ghost walking over his grave. Fuck! What if he pulled a Gatsby? What if he didn’t even show up, played some viddy games, smoked a fatty, and slept? He wasn’t nervous. He didn’t let himself feel those sorts of things. This was going to be a good night. At worst, they’d have low attendance and still have a good time, but Thelon didn’t think that would be the case.

  Shoving the doubts down and out, he let himself feel his high and headed to the venue. There was a crowd out front so he slipped in through a back door. He avoided talking to anyone. Thelon needed his mind fresh to keep the vision in his mind of how it ought to be. Applause roared as Thelon stepped onto the stage. It kicked off just as he’d imagined. There must have been 30,000 people packed in there.

  He wasn’t there to play anything, or even dance particularly well. It was his personality they wanted to see. Let his joy be contagious while he had a good time. Show them how to have a good time. He was a clown. He was a king. This was his party. Someone passed him a mic.

  “Let be be the finale of seem. What? I said let be be the finale of seem and I’m the emperor of ice cream. You hear that? It’s angels getting their wings. You’re in paradise, baby loves. Time to stop beating yourself up about it and get high as fuck.”

  Thelon put down the mic and took a hit from the massive hookah on stage. He gestured for the musicians to amp it up, and they did. The beat was fast and fun. On cue with the music, the light show created holographic avatars of animal-human figures, horse headed topless women, centaurs; Dr. Seuss and classic mythology in living cartoons onto the stage. Flashing neon lightning fish swam in the air above the energized crowd. Thelon interacted with them, dancing together until they grew large. He watched them hump and grind and laugh. The audience loved it.

  Marcus beckoned Thelon from stage left, wagging his arms to get his attention. Thelon gave him a, ‘what?’ shrug, but Marcus continued to gesture for him to come over.

  “What do you want, man?” he shouted over the music.

  “Somebody disabled the Coppers.”

  “I don’t know what the fuck you’re saying. Look out there. Shit’s on fire.”

  Marcus grabbed his shoulder. “Thelonious, people are saying things are getting rowdy down there. We don’t have a Copper here. We don’t have security of any kind. I tried to tell you before. Something is wrong.”

  “Chill,” Thelon said. He didn’t need this noise. It was too close to the worries he had felt before.

  “Why should I chill? What if someone gets hurt?”

  “Let them get high. Nothing’s going to happen. Have them turn on the love aerosol. Nothing bad happens in the cloud. Chill.” Thelon danced back on stage, leaving Marcus with his gloomy face and deep thoughts that didn’t belong at a party. Nope, nope. Nobody was going to ruin his good time tonight.

  ***

  Thelon walked with his robot police escort, head a bit fucked from the noise and screams and still a bit high despite what should have been a sobering awfulness of the experience. There was blood on his shirt. He didn’t know whose. Something bad had happened. Real bad. He couldn’t remember what. They said someone was dead. A girl. Who?

  He’d never been here before in the lockup. The Coppers were tall bullshit excuses of someone’s imagined robots; metal, chrome, and copper. Trashcans with stupid machine faces. They could exterminate him at anytime. Thelon heard they could do that. That they were allowed to do that.

  Why run? He’d answer their questions and get the hell back home. He thought about the girl, dead, under his roof, at his party. Pieces clicked together. He was going to take the fall for this shit. That’s why he was here. He didn’t do shit, but since it happened at his party, he was on the hook. The idea became very clear they were going to put him in some futuristic toaster and burn him up.

  “Wait here,” the almost cheerful, authoritarian robot voice said.

  They left him in the white hallway to think on how they might torture him. Thelon had other ideas. He looked left and right, and there wasn’t anyone watching him. Were the Coppers dumb enough to leave a suspect alone? Looked like it. He decided they’d get what they deserved then. Thelon counted to three and no one came. He was alone in a building run by incompetent machines. Here we go, he thought, and walked right back down the hall they’d brought him through.

  Stupid idiots. There must not be enough people breaking the law anymore to think they should prepare for this. If there were digital eyes watching him, Thelon didn’t see them. Out of sight, out of mind. A few more unlocked doors and empty halls, and he was outside. He could go back to his place, but they’d be there, waiting. Somewhere else. Anywhere else. He pushed the bloody memory of the girl out of his head and changed direction. He was downtown. Screw going home. Thelon started out for the transit station.

  Despite the late hour, there were still travelers coming and going. He saw a Copper sleeping idlily in the corner. As long as he didn’t do anything to wake it up, he would be on his way.

  Some guy waved, pointing to his own chin. “Hey, you got something on your face.”

  Thelon reached up and felt the drying blood there. “Uh, thanks,” he replied and rubbed at it. He wanted to stop off in a bathroom and get cleaned up, but he felt pressure—there wasn’t any time.

  He hopped the turnstile, skipped the identity confirmation, and without even looking at the destination, stepped right in with the next group of travelers. The blue light transported the batch of pilgrims in an instant. Tokyo. Great. He’d never once left the Chicago instance. Thelon had figured it would be the same everywhere, and he was wrong.

  Tokyo, at least outside the transit station, was so densely packed with people he had no choice but to move with the slow shuffle forward. He needed to get changed. The blood on his shirt stank of iron and was making him nauseous. Up ahead, Thelon spotted a row of Coppers. This was the jam up: they were scanning travelers before permitting them into the city. Fuck.

  Thelon pushed back against the flow and people gave him looks of disgust. Yeah, yeah. Annoying when somebody is in the wrong queue. I get it. He worked his way to the side, back to the line heading to the transit portals. This checkpoint couldn’t be because of him. Why hadn’t they suspended his travel access? Naw. Tokyo must be dealing with their own shit right now. Stepping back onto the transport stand, Thelon was alone this time. He randomly hit the destination selection and confirmed he’d complete a survey on Tokyo when he arrived.

  The sun was coming up when he stepped into Prague. Cobblestone streets and a single plane of the city greeted him. Fuck yeah. The absence of neon rainbow cloud tiers was in itself calming. The city felt real. Thelon didn’t think this was a luddite place like those Amish parts of Chicago that showed restraint in everything, but they’d clearly taken a preservation approach to the city. It stank like onions, beer, and piss, and even that felt sol
id. He wasn’t sure what the local time was, but it looked like dawn. The sky was still dark, though lightening. The streets were entirely empty as Thelon hustled out of the small transit area into a narrow street lined with shops and cafes. Man, he should be here with Furie on a holiday. He knew she’d geek out over the architecture—old-world; truly old-world.

  The shops weren’t open yet, but he rapped on a door of a clothier. Fancy suits. He’d take a potato sack right then, but Thelon was calm when a man answered. Guy must have been starting early because he was already dressed in a fine starched, grey button down, a darker and rather sartorial slim vest with blue jewel toned tie in an immaculate knot.

  “Dear god, you look a mess,” the man said, looking over the rims of his small glasses and stroking his red and well waxed moustache.

  “Yeah, I know. I fell down some stairs.”

  “Do you need medical attention? I can summon someone for you.”

  “No. I just want a change of clothes.”

  “I’m afraid we are not open yet.”

  “I get that. You see, I’m supposed to be meeting my girl. I’m going to propose to her, and I can’t do that looking like a piece of refried shit.”

  “I take your point. Come in.”

  The man measured Thelon and patiently explained they did not use prefabricated design or production. Thelon grew impatient and took a suit with pins still in the legs. The shop keeper was aggrieved.

  He’s going to alert someone. Thelon panicked. The bloody rags, man. He’s going to call bullshit and make a report. See ya, Prague. I hardly knew ya.

  Thelon was tired. The adrenaline was wearing off and his high was long gone. He wished for a tiny bump of something to get him moving again. He needed someplace chill to sleep and make a plan. Looking over the map of the Eden world, locations blinked to indicate popularity and activity. The dimmest light was Jodhpur, India. Let’s see what you have for breakfast, he thought and transported with a flash.