Something roars. There is screaming and smashing. My entire being is immersed in pain beyond description. I know why this is happening and I curse Blade. A final freezing wave frees me and I am flying. Wings magically sprout out from behind my shoulder blades, glittering like golden spider webs. They are strong enough to carry me away from the terror and turmoil and agony that racks my entire being.
Someone tries to call me back. I hear the voice begging me to come back, to live. A firm voice interrupts the pleas.
“He’s gone, my dear,” the fading voice echoes from far behind me. “The machine keeps his heart beating, but he’s essentially dead. Do you understand? He’s dead. Are you aware your son signed up as an organ donor?”
There is a final scream, more terrifying than all the others. Space vibrates with the energy of that scream as it reaches out for me with talons of sound. I know I mustn’t let it catch me, for it is unbearable in its desperation. Within its force there thrashes more agony than is humanly possible to withstand.
I keep flying, determined to escape the vortex of misery trying to catch me. My gauzy golden wings take me away from the noise, the pain, towards unchartered suns and unnamed planets. I keep going.
I fly into a black hole where there are no stars. I cannot escape it but I don’t want to. I am swimming in a void, safe from the agony and turmoil. No sound. No sight. No feelings. No memories. No sensation of any kind. In the absolute nothingness, time does not exist.
The dream ends.
Chapter 33: Dragon
What else is a dragon to do when left alone? I’m certainly not going to spend the next few weeks staring at posters of the alphabet. I go online, even though I know it’s dangerous. Actually, because it’s dangerous I do it.
I cruise around my space, occasionally poking my awareness outside of it to see how the city is doing. Whoever or whatever is running the systems, almost everything seems to be operating. The electricity distribution isn’t as optimised as it could be, I note smugly, but at least it’s working. Security is still a mess, thanks to me.
I scan for any sign of Griffin. Surely she will send me a message once Myth is with her. I don’t see any, but I do notice another communication channel blinking. I open it warily.
“Dr. Johansson,” I exclaim.
The doctor looks back at me, her mouth hanging open. “You’re still free then?” she gasps.
“Yes, in a manner of speaking.” I scowl slightly. “Myth’s locked me up in a…” I almost slip up, but stop myself. “…away somewhere.”
She nods and stops with a frown. “Why?”
“She found a way off the island, but there wasn’t space for me,” I complain.
I can tell Dr. Johansson is torn between relief and worry. “I’m glad to hear that. I was hoping to find her, actually. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do this again, to come online. I think one of my guards suspects what I’m doing.”
I want to tell her that Myth has a memory stick with all my files against the company. I want to reassure her that she’ll soon be free once Myth tells the world about what Grogan Ltd is doing. But I don’t dare. Someone could very well be listening in. I wonder when the Games Boss will interrupt us.
“Do you know a brain called Griffin?” I ask her. That at least is a safe topic. Maybe.
“Did you say Griffin?” Her dark eyes tell me something is not right.
“Yes. It’s another brain system,” I explain. “I met her online. I think Grogan Ltd has started installing the new series.”
Dr. Johansson is shaking her head. “No.” She licks her lips, glances around. “It’s not possible about Griffin, Dragon. Griffin was a code name for Grogan’s first attempt at organic–computer hybrid systems, going back close to twelve years ago. It was named after the mythical beast, the one with an eagle’s head and wings and a lion’s body. The Griffin project was a mix of different creatures, you could say.”
I wait. From her posture and her expression, I suspect this is not going to be a safe topic.
“I led the team. The research done for the Griffin helped us to make you and the other MindOpS systems.” She hesitates.
I wait for the ‘however’.
“However,” she continues, “the Griffin project itself was terminated.”
As she talks, I begin a search, one I should’ve done before. For online games, I use a dragon avatar, with the same coloured eyes as mine. What does Griffin use? More specifically, what colour is it?
“Grogan’s Board requested the organic material to be destroyed.” She pauses, rubbing her hands together as if she is cold. “It’s possible the Board’s orders weren’t followed. That something from the Griffin project was salvaged. I don’t know. I’m not sure I’d trust this Griffin.”
It takes a few seconds, a long time for me to run a search. She hid it well. But I find it.
“I better go,” Dr. Johansson whispers. “My personal guard usually checks on me when I least expect her. For my own safety.” She snorts. “Remember that person you didn’t know? The one with the Games Boss. Your sensors never picked her up when she entered the city. I still haven’t figured out how she did that.”
I find it.
“Anyways, she’s my guard, whenever she’s not doing something for the Boss. She’s part of his special force.” She shakes her head while making a rude noise. “One of the other guards said she’s been given Full Protocol. I’m glad Myranda is getting off the island. Things are going to get rough.”
“What’s her name?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” Dr. Johansson answers. “She’s never told me. I just call her dangerous.” She gazes down at her hands and muses, “I’ve never met an albino before.”
I don’t respond immediately, but instead stare at Griffin’s avatar: a white griffin with red eyes, an albino.
It’s not possible. It must be a coincidence that Griffin’s avatar and the unknown guard are both albinos. They can’t be the same entity, surely. No normal human being can contact me through the online space the way Griffin had. At least, no human being that I know of. But according to the doctor, there is no other connected brain – computer system apart from me and MindOpS 2. Griffin the brain does not exist, but it seems that Griffin the human does.
“I wonder how long that guard has been with the Boss?” I wonder out loud as I check back through the system to see when Griffin first accessed it. The earliest record I find goes back eleven years, seven months, around the same time as the Griffin project.
At the same time, I do a check on the employment roster of City Hall, where all government employees are recorded. Nothing. Same for Grogan Ltd.
“Try the Boss’s personal files,” Dr. Johansson suggests. “I know that’s where he records his less official dealings and staff payments.”
Part of my training resists any intrusions of privacy that are not officially sanctioned. I push through and find it remarkably easy to access the Boss’s files. Myth does a better job at putting up firewalls than the techies working in City Hall.
I find her. Start date: eleven years and seven months ago. She has two job descriptions. The first is for the first year and a half and states simply ‘Experimental: Griffin project’ with no further details. The second job started when the first ended and is listed as ‘Classified’. The picture of the albino is there.
For the first time in ten years, I swear. I know now why Griffin can enter the city without being detected and how she can communicate with me the way she had. Three thoughts flash through my awareness.
About ten years ago, Griffin the experimental brain was installed into an albino body.
About ten minutes ago, Myth left me to run straight into a trap.
Ten seconds ago, I decided to contact a colleague from my previous life. Blade owes me one. After all, I received the death threat because of his screw-up. Because of him, I lost my body. He owes me and it’s payback time.
Chapter 34: Myth
The dune grasses swis
hed and swayed with the salt-scented sea breeze, while the tidal waves tickled the beach. I was running along a narrow, dirt trail winding through the grass, the sound of my shoes slapping against the hard earth in time to my heart. The trail sloped up above the beach, before rounding the hill and heading down toward The Port.
My ear itched as sweat trickled around the earpiece. I yanked it out (the earpiece, not my ear), stowed it in a pocket, making sure it was off. I slowed down as the trail morphed into a cobblestone pathway and the piers came into sight. Sunlight twinkled off the ocean surface and I squinted my eyes.
No guards yet. That was weird. This place should’ve been swarming with guards. Then again, any ship docked on the piers was locked down until customs opened, and no other ship could approach the island without permission. And even though The Port faced the mainland, it was definitely too far to swim.
Still, it seemed too quiet.
I ducked behind a stack of crates and studied the open plaza leading to the piers. Dawn was squeezing by. I knew I should go, but I watched. A few breaths later, a pair of guards strolled into view, casually peering into storefronts, checking for nonexistent thieves. Or doing some window shopping.
They veered away, towards Pier 1 where a cruise ship had docked for the night. I knew there were probably other guards around, but I couldn’t wait anymore.
I was about to get up, to search for Griffin’s ship, when a hand descended on me. I spun around. Prepared to kick someone’s knee out. That same hand flipped me faster than I can flip pancakes. Okay, that’s not too impressive, given my culinary abilities. But the person gripping my arm behind my back was fast and impressive. My crowbar was yanked out of my grip.
Before I could struggle, the hand let me go.
“Follow me, Myth,” a gravelly voice ordered softly.
I stumbled to my feet, rubbed my shoulder. My assailant walked away, not checking to see if I would follow. The person was wearing a long, black raincoat, black boots, black gloves, a grey scarf pulled up over the nose, dark sunglasses and a black hat with a wide brim.
Weird.
It wasn’t the rainy season and it never got that cold on Sana Island. The hat and sunglasses I could appreciate, but boots? Scarf? Gloves? What was this?
I trotted after the stranger. “You Griffin’s friend?”
The hat flopped forward slightly. I took that for a yes.
“Where’s her ship?”
An arm stretched out, pointed to Pier 5.
Great. The farthest pier, I complained to myself. It would have to be the farthest pier and the ship would have to be at the very end of the farthest pier.
A flash of white caught my attention. The rain jacket’s sleeve had pulled back a bit. I stared at the small piece of exposed skin on the arm. White. Not ‘white’ as in ‘Caucasian’. White as in no skin colouring at all.
My guide was an albino.
Which kinda explained the excessive clothing. Albinos burn fast and bad without the protective pigmentation most people naturally have. I’d never seen an albino. And I knew for sure there wasn’t one living on the island. That news would’ve spread fast.
So where did Griffin’s friend come from?
My guide hissed at me, pushed me into a store’s recessed doorway. She (I’m pretty sure it was a woman under all that covering) held a finger over the scarf where her mouth was.
“Guards,” she whispered.
I stopped breathing.
Footsteps approached. For sure they were going to see us huddled here. The albino started tapping out a text message on her phone. Hardly the time to be texting, I thought. The footsteps stopped moving. Muffled voices. I tried to hear what they were saying. Probably: “Let’s go catch that fugitive girl and collect the reward.”
If that’s what the guards said, they missed their chance. The footsteps headed off in another direction, angling for Pier 3. I started breathing again. The albino slipped out of the doorway and continued towards Pier 5. The cobblestones were replaced by the wooden walkway of the pier.
I glanced behind me. In front. To the side at the smaller boats bobbing on the incoming tide.
“Where are the guards?” I whispered. The albino shrugged her shoulders and led me to a yacht that could’ve swallowed my apartment. Granted, our place wasn’t big, but still… I was impressed. And confused.
I followed her across a short walkway onto the spacious deck, down a short flight of stairs and into a compact bedroom. She stood in the doorway, pointed at the bed and waited until I was seated. She leaned across the small space, scooped up my bag and placed it on a peg by the door.
“Wait here,” she said in a thick voice.
“Hang on.” I waved at her. “Who are you?”
The albino pushed down the grey scarf and removed her glasses. I tried not to shudder at the unnatural reddish eye colour and blotchy white skin.
“I am Griffin,” she answered.
At first, I thought I’d misheard her. Once I’d sorted that out, that my hearing was fine, I gaped at her. “That’s not possible,” I told her. “Dragon would’ve known if he was talking with a human. I mean, a human with a body. You know what I mean.”
She twirled her glasses. Stared at me. Into me. “Yes, Myranda. I know what you mean. Like all of your kind, you don’t really consider us human. Never have. We’re just organic matter to plug into a system to make it run better.”
“That’s not what I meant. It just came out that way,” I stuttered. She reminded me of Dragon just then. He’d made a few comments like that. I started to chew on my nail and forced both my hands onto my lap. “Who are you really?”
“I was a girl once, like you,” she answered slowly in her gravelly voice. “Something bad happened to that girl, to her body, so my brain was used as part of a project. The project that eventually created the MindOp system.”
My hands squeezed against my thighs. We hadn’t left The Port yet. If I could get past her, I could run for the pier. Or if there were guards on the boat, swim underneath it to shore. Good plan, I figured. Until I remembered the strength of her grip. The speed of her attack. And the guards who were definitely waking up and exiting whatever holes they’d been hiding in.
“But if you were part of a MindOp system, then…” I gestured to the body.
She gazed down as if noticing the body for the first time. “The previous brain that occupied it no longer had a need for it. So I moved in.”
I tried not to react, but my poker face sucks. So I changed the subject fast. “Why couldn’t Dragon come?” I asked, starting to stand up, still thinking about that swim. I could swim all the way around The Port to the quiet beach path. Avoid the guards altogether. “You said you didn’t have space.”
She shrugged again. “Dragon could’ve found a way to use the ship’s communication system to send his data to the mainland. And he would’ve tried to take over the boat itself. Too much headache for me to deal with.”
Keep her talking, I thought as I eased upright. “But how did you fool him?”
Her lips twisted slightly. I think she kinda smiled but not really. I got the feeling she didn’t smile too often. No smile creases at all. “I’m still able to connect to the network. Being plugged into the MindOp system expanded my mind.” She coughed once, or maybe she laughed.
I didn’t get the joke, if there was one. I didn’t care. I launched myself at her. She didn’t even blink. Her foot connected to my stomach. Hard. I crashed into a ball of pain as the door eased shut. I dimly heard a lock click into place.
When the spasms loosened in my stomach, I rolled onto my back. That’s when I saw that the peg beside the door was empty. Griffin had taken my bag, with my phone and memory stick in it.
Chapter 35: Myth
I didn’t bother getting up. Just lay on the floor in a puddle of misery. It wasn’t my stomach that was bothering me now. Just my pride. How stupid could I’ve been? Always trust your instinct, I reprimanded myself. Never steered you wrong before.
For the most part, anyway.
As I lay there, feeling sorry for myself, I checked out the room. Looked for a way to escape. That didn’t take long. Short of someone opening that door or sliding open a secret panel, there was no getting out. The one porthole had a couple bars across it. The door looked pretty sturdy.
Yup. I was miserable and caught.
Some time passed. It felt like forever. Probably not that long. I couldn’t understand why we were still at the pier. Why not just ship me out to whatever prison awaited me and get it over with? Someone slipped a tray of food into the room and quickly left. Lunch. I slid over, ate without tasting.
The yacht vibrated into life as an engine churned a propeller against the water. The hull hummed and rolled as it pushed through the ocean. I couldn’t care less. I just hoped that Dragon kept offline or at least moved carefully. Bad enough that I was caught.
I actually fell asleep, believe it or not. Given all the running I’d done lately, you should believe it. I woke up when the ship slowed down and bumped gently against something. I pushed myself up and glanced out the porthole. We were floating beside a wooden dock connected to a small, manmade island. A few shrubs and trees stood at attention nearby. Several guards lounged around. They were armed with a bit more than Taser guns.
So there went my plans of overpowering them and jumping into the ocean to swim back home.
A fist pounded on the door, which swung open. Griffin stood there, her pasty, white face expressionless, and gestured for me to follow her. Another guard fell in behind me. I squinted in the bright sun, wishing for my sunglasses. Since I was wishing, I might as well wish for my bag back and a ticket to the mainland.
We marched down the dock, wooden boards creaking underfoot, up a set of concrete stairs and entered a concrete cube of a building. I figured this was the Boss’s floating mansion. It looked more like a small fort. An ugly fort. There were very few windows to break up the flat walls, and those few windows were darkened.
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