by P. R. Adams
“The ZenTek deal is yours,” Credence said. “We’ve—”
“It’s over, Jenny,” DeVries said. “Cynthia wants to try to…” He waved a hand, dismissive. “I don’t know, make this work.”
Sweat beaded on Credence’s upper lip and trickled down her ribs, soaking into her dress. Hot tears tracked down her cheeks, stopping momentarily on her lips before continuing down to her chin.
“No commitments, Jenny. We agreed on that from the start. It’s not like we took any vows or anything.”
“I know.” She wiped the tears away. “That was my stipulation, remember?”
DeVries had made it clear to everyone his marriage was over some time back. A big celebration, a change in routine. Women throughout the tower had quickly picked up the scent, talking about the prey over lunch in the dining facility. Many were put off by fear of being the rebound.
Credence jumped at the sound of a knock; O’Neill stood in the doorway. She seemed startled, as if suddenly realizing he could have been there from the start, could have heard everything. It was as if she’d been so caught up in every move and word of DeVries that she would never have noticed without the knock.
“I think it’s fixed,” O’Neill said. “I’ve got it downloading the latest software now. Should be ten, twenty minutes before its ready to test.”
Credence stood and adjusted her dress, her hands shaking with apparent nervousness. “Thanks. Tom, why don’t we grab a coffee over at Istanbul?”
DeVries glanced at O’Neill with a look that seemed both threatening and thankful, then exited the conference room. Credence followed, still wiping tears from her face. DeVries hovered close to her as they headed for the exit to the main hall.
“Miss Credence?”
Credence turned to look at O’Neill, clearly annoyed. “Yes?”
“I’ll need your authorization to pay for the part.”
Credence looked at DeVries. “Five minutes. If I’m not at the skywalk by then, go ahead. I’ll meet you there. Order me an espresso, please. An extra shot. I need it.” She rubbed at her eyes, which could have been red from lack of sleep or crying.
DeVries hesitated for a moment, as if he were ready to argue with her, then he stiffly headed for the elevator. Credence watched him go, then let out a sigh and slumped. She was nothing more than a shadow of the woman who had entered the tower earlier. Her dress, her hairstyle…everything about her suddenly seemed out of place, alien, another fabrication. She yawned and walked over to the prototyper.
“It’s been tough,” O’Neill said, his eyes trailing from Credence to the door DeVries had just left through. “Sometimes you get so caught up in what you think you’re seeing, you don’t see what’s right in front of you.” He pointed to a twenty-centimeter-long cylinder on the floor next to the machine. “I kept telling myself, ‘No way that’s broken. It looks perfectly fine, even under magnification. No cracks, no signs of any defects. Perfect.’ I guess that’s how it can be, though. Maybe I wanted it to be perfect?”
Credence nodded, apparently still distracted. She looked at the prototyper’s console and flipped through a few diagnostics. Everything read green. She saw the invoice. “Five thousand dollars?”
O’Neill chuckled. “I’m thinking you’re wishing everything was perfect now too?”
Credence’s groan was barely audible. She gave a final glance at the machine, then authorized the payment. The invoice glowed happily. “MetaConceptual,” she mumbled as if in a trance.
“That’s the part provider,” O’Neill said. “MetaConceptual.” When he repeated the word, Credence jumped as if an electrical shock had hit her.
She shook her head and slowly made her way to the exit. She stopped at the door as if trying to steady herself or find her balance.
“You okay?” O’Neill moved toward her, hand extended.
Credence waved him back. “Yeah. I’ve been having trouble sleeping.” She looked back and blushed. “I’ve had the craziest nightmares. Is that stupid?”
“No.” He slowly lowered his hand. “Trust me. I understand completely.”
Credence opened the door and slowly walked toward the elevator, each step an apparently surprising challenge that she celebrated overcoming by taking another. At the elevator door, she turned and waved at O’Neill, as if she’d expected him to be in the office entryway, watching over her the whole time. The elevator door opened, and she stepped into the car and turned, eyes locked with O’Neill’s as he stepped into the hallway. She put her earpiece into her ear and shivered as the elevator door started to close.
A few moments later, she exited on the thirtieth floor, stopping to catch her breath. She looked around, and her voice rose over the noise of the busy building. “Reference system.” She craned her neck and leaned on the rail, searching below. “Research United Nations records for a corporation by the name of MetaConceptual. Any variation. Detailed.”
Her earpiece responded almost immediately, a deep, resonant voice with perfect enunciation. “There is no record of a corporation by that name registered with the United Nations.”
“Search cartel and metacorporation records.”
“There is no cartel or metacorporate entry for an entity registered under the name MetaConceptual,” the earpiece replied.
Credence froze. All around her the world seemed at peace with itself. People walked by, blissfully absorbed in their fulfilling lives. They were the beneficiaries of record prosperity, unprecedented lows in unemployment and crime. War was a distant memory.
“What’s wrong with me?” Credence whispered.
She watched the people walk past her. She was just like them: brilliant, attractive enough, and successful. The nightmares seemed to be ruining her. There was no escaping that. She scanned the crowd again and edged forward until she had a better look at the skywalk at the end of the hallway.
The skywalk entry was relatively crowded. A mountainous woman in a white, floral dress stepped from the elevators and bumped Credence hard, nearly knocking her down. She turned, looking angry, searching the crowd headed for the skywalk, possibly for the white dress, looking as if she might be uncertain about what she would say but ready to say it when the time came. She moved toward the woman in the white dress, who was entering the skywalk. A few meters beyond her, DeVries leaned against the skywalk’s glass, looking at the ground far below.
Credence’s eyes locked on a man entering the tower from the skywalk. He wore an expensive, form-fitting pullover shirt and cotton pants, the sort of outfit that screamed success and confidence. He was wiry, his arms knotted with muscle. Designer sunglasses hid his eyes. Even so, it seemed that he was watching her.
She staggered, as if her legs were suddenly incapable of supporting her. She closed her eyes and spread her arms. The feeling seemed to pass as quickly as it came.
Her eyes opened again, and she looked back at the man in the pullover. She recoiled. The man wore a black bodysuit and hood that resembled a scuba outfit. Metal-rimmed goggles with glowing red lenses covered his eyes. A bulky, holstered gun rested against the left side of his chest.
Credence gasped even as the man stiffened. She looked around, moving as if in a panic, and seemed to relax slightly once she saw there were no others dressed as he was. No one else seemed the least bit concerned about either of them.
Then the man mumbled something she couldn’t hear and stepped away, reaching for the holstered pistol.
2
13 June, 2174. Atlanta, Georgia.
* * *
Credence let out an ear-piercing scream and charged the rubber-suited man. Before the gun cleared the holster, she was on him. She grabbed his hand with both of hers. He tried to shove her aside with his free hand, but she drove her shoulder into his chest, temporarily pinning the hand. Almost immediately he began to overpower her, forcing the gun barrel toward her head. She desperately drove a knee into his groin, lifting him off the ground. He gasped and buckled, pulling her closer, and in that instant she sh
oved the gun into his face and squeezed her fingers over his trigger finger.
The gun emitted a loud, piercing blast, and the top half of the man’s head evaporated in a fine, pink spray. Heavier particles arced away from the twitching body and splattered the ground behind, slicking the floor. The stench of the man’s bowels and bladder evacuating filled the air.
Credence fell away and retched, slipping slightly in the gore. The body hit the wall and bounced forward, sprawling on the floor. The mist of blood now spraying from the head made crazy, dark, patterns on the carpeting.
The crowd around Credence had gone silent, recoiling in horror at the brutality of the murder. She looked at them; they stared back, blank-eyed. She stumbled as if another wave of dizziness had hit her, but instead she shook herself and seemed to stabilize. Finally someone screamed, and the stillness broke. People ran, crawled, and leapt, apparently desperate to get away from her.
“No.” Credence looked around, eyes distant and glassy. “Istanbul. Coffee. MetaConceptual.” She mouthed the words over and over again.
It was as if the screaming was somewhere else, and the hot blood on her face and hands wasn’t real. Her trembling fingers clutched at the blood-slicked gun. She looked down at the body, and everything seemed to come back to her.
“Tom!” She looked past the corpse and the retreating crowd and up the hall to the skywalk.
DeVries stood in the skywalk, oblivious to the wave of panicked onlookers fleeing the scene. They moved around him like waves breaking on an unyielding boulder. He stared at Credence, mouth open, forehead wrinkled.
“Tom!” She ran for the skywalk. Her practical heels suddenly seemed beyond her ability to manage.
DeVries backed away as she approached the skywalk entry.
Suddenly, the shrieks of the retreating crowd were drowned out, replaced by the groan of structural composites, glass, and steel failing. Credence came to a wobbly stop and watched, incredulous, as the skywalk simply buckled. It started at the center, then advanced to the point where it was anchored to the tower, and then it pulled away from the far building. DeVries stared at Credence, as if what he’d seen her do was somehow more horrifying than his own imminent demise.
One moment the skywalk was there, DeVries transfixed, unmoving; the next it was gone and DeVries with it.
“Tom?” Credence staggered toward the opening in the wall.
“Jenny?”
Credence turned at the sound of O’Neill’s voice. She looked at him with an unsteady gaze, as if she were trying to make sense of what she was seeing. He wore the same coveralls he’d been wearing before. He was still a tall, athletic, middle-aged man. Yet she acted as if he were completely different, as if he gave off an aura of menace.
“Jared? What’s…?” Credence looked at the hole that had been the skywalk.
“We need to get out of here.” O’Neill took the gun from her shaking hand and stuffed it inside his coveralls.
“My nightmare. This is just like my nightmare. Nothing makes sense.” Credence swooned slightly. “Tom was going to leave her for me. Tom was…” Wind tugged them toward the hole.
“If you don’t move now, you’ll die never understanding.” O’Neill waved for her to follow. “Now.”
O’Neill walked to the elevator. His pace was crisp, efficient. Credence struggled to keep up. She looked at her shoes and gasped as if for the first time realizing how cheap and shoddy they appeared.
The elevator door opened and O’Neill grabbed her arm, pulling her after him. She seemed to barely hold in a gasp, and for a moment she pulled against his grip, as if she wasn’t sure about his intentions. He was big, powerful, a laborer among the elite. It was common knowledge the lower classes would be attracted to someone like her—or at least to her wealth. As the elevator door closed, she looked at his coveralls.
She cocked her head slightly. “They’re so clean…”
“What?”
“Your coveralls.” She looked at her dress and blushed. “Oh my god. What…” She covered herself where the dress was torn. “This is new. I just bought it.”
“Jenny—”
“Maybe it’s the elevator light?” She ran her hands over all the wrinkles, stains, and frayed fabric.
“Jenny, it’s coming back to you,” O’Neill said. It was a statement, an assertion. “MetaConceptual. Think about it, Jenny. MetaConceptual. Say it.”
Credence mouthed the word, but it looked like she was just doing it to cooperate, maybe out of fear. She stared at her shoes again.
O’Neill leaned against the elevator door, and the material of his coveralls shifted as the muscles in his back bunched. “We’re in danger.”
Credence shifted away from him. “What?”
O’Neill’s brow wrinkled. “What?”
“You said we were in danger.”
“We are in danger, but I didn’t say anything.” He put a powerful hand on her shoulder. “You need to concentrate.”
The elevator chimed, and the door opened. O’Neill stepped out, once again grabbing her arm and pulling her after him. He fast-walked toward the escalator, his pace just short of a jog.
Credence wobbled unsteadily, blinking as if she were dealing with another wave of dizziness. She gasped suddenly as if awakening from a dream.
The carpeting beneath O’Neill’s feet—once plush, vibrant, scarlet—was a tattered and stained ruin. As they neared the escalators, they resolved into greasy, grimy, and unstable platforms. Rather than running in fear like the people who’d seen her shoot the man in the black suit, the people on the escalator shambled around, oblivious. They weren’t the sort of beautiful, successful people who populated the sparkling towers. These folk were plain, unkempt, detached, and dressed in the same castaway clothing she was wearing.
As her eyes scanned the escalator, two more of the men in the scuba suits set foot on the steps coming up.
“Keep your cool,” O’Neill said. “They’re just scanning—”
Credence jerked, and O’Neill cursed.
The men turned, focused on her, and reached for their guns.
“Dammit! Get down!” O’Neill growled as he shoved her away and produced a pistol from inside his coveralls, sighting in on the strange men.
The pistol roared, and high-pitched blasts sounded in return. Blood and bits of flesh sprayed down as the somnambulistic passengers took the worst of the attacks. A moment later, O’Neill offered Credence his hand, tugged her to her feet, and pulled her forward, shoving a path through the crowd.
Credence glanced over her shoulder and gasped, apparently surprised at the devastation left in their wake. The men in black lay on the escalator steps, blood leaking from several wounds. The innocents who had survived the exchange seemed unaware of what had just happened, even while caught in the wash of blood from the dead and wounded.
Credence let out a deep, throaty sound. “Wh-what’s going on?”
O’Neill hauled her onward. “Keep moving.”
They surged through the crowd, continuing ever downward until they reached the bottom floor. Rather than take the front door, O’Neill ran for the cafeteria. As they ran, smells became stronger. It was clear that Credence was expecting the enticing aromas of a four-star dining experience, but these odors were more along the lines of a greasy diner. When they entered a narrow hallway, Credence’s nose wrinkled.
“Oh! Is that me? I…” She looked around. “How long has it been since I showered? I don’t—”
“Not now.” O’Neill pulled her along. “MetaConceptual. Keep it in your head.”
Except for a handful of staff working their way methodically through preparations, the cafeteria was empty. O’Neill pushed past a hostess trying to shove them back out, and a moment later they were in the kitchen. Credence gasped—it was a cluttered, unsanitary mess. Kitchens weren’t pristine, organized operations in most instances, but the disarray and filth on display in this room was beyond deplorable. She gagged as rats popped up from inside a sta
ck of pots and pans.
None of the staff seemed to pay the vermin any attention.
A hallway, a sharp turn, and then a door, and beyond the door, an alleyway, and they were outside the towers.
Credence looked around, and her jaw dropped.
“See it for what it is,” O’Neill said. “No rising towers, no glittering glass, no bright sunlight. Okay? This is reality. Graffiti, concrete walls, shattered windows, and dull steel. You getting it?”
Rotting garbage cluttered the alley. The stench was smothering in the thick air. Smog obscured the buildings above one hundred meters.
Credence came to a stop. “Jared, I can’t go on. I’m…I…”
O’Neill gently released her. He reloaded the pistol and scanned the alleyway. “Okay. Take a second. Catch your breath. You’ve been out of it for a bit, so you’re probably having a hard time keeping up.”
Credence shook her head, and her features became pinched. “You need to tell me what’s going on here. Where am I? What’s happening to me? I woke up this morning and went to work. This isn’t right. None of this is right. It’s not where I was. It’s not who I am.”
O’Neill chuckled wryly. “It is who you are. You didn’t wake up this morning. You woke up a few minutes ago, when you saw that man for what he was, and he tried to kill you. You’re just now seeing everything as it truly is.”
Credence closed her eyes and winced as if she were in pain.
“The headache,” O’Neill said. “Yeah. Don’t fight it. You’re just going to have to push through it. It would be better if we got you somewhere safer.”
Credence pressed a hand to her forehead as if to keep her head from exploding. “Can’t you give me a straight answer? Just one?”
“All right. I’ll start with this. My name’s not Jared O’Neill. It’s Jack Rimes.”
Credence opened her eyes and gasped. “Jack? Oh…the memories.” She gasped. “We failed?”