by Damien Boyes
Galvan considers this for a moment, as if internally weighing the options of breaking Service protocol with the unknown allure of cracking a case wide open. “We won’t get in trouble?”
“I’ll take full responsibility. How long has the department been after Xiao, playing by the rules? That cypher sweep you made wasn’t by the book—look how that turned out.”
“I don’t know—”
I give him the address. “Meet me in the PATH below the building at 00h. And dress safe.”
“Okay,” Galvan concedes. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Fin.”
“Trust me,” I say and he clicks off.
My face cracks a smile. A shiver of anticipation flutters through me. Finally, some progress.
Now all I have to do is figure out a way past what I’m sure will be Kade’s extensive security and get to Kade without getting Galvan or myself killed.
StatUS-ID
[fdaa:9afe:17e6:a2ef::Gage/-//GIBSON]
SysDate
[00:05:51. Saturday, January 18, 2059]
After what seems like an eternity in the stocks, I come out of my head into a world saturated with colour, my tiny apartment a luxurious palace. Room temperature a sensory buffet. As hard as they have it, I don’t know how Miranda and Tala aren’t both gibbering loons by now.
But I know this: I can’t run anymore. I can’t pretend I’m an innocent bystander in my life.
All these people I touched the last time around, all of them are worse off because of me. Dora. Shelt. Dub. Miranda. Tala. They all said it, every one.
This started with me.
Miranda and Tala and Elder and Dub and Dora. Even Galvan. All of them hurt or suffering because of something I started. Just because I can’t remember it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
There’s no one else I can blame, no convenient coincidence to hide behind.
I started this.
So I need to fix it.
Something happened in that counselling group. Something that made each and every one of us a target. I don’t know if the mindjacks are a diversion or a way to get us out of the way or the ultimate goal, but they’re happening. No way all these people commit wildly out-of-character acts all so close together.
Someone is behind this.
Everything points to Elder. He has the capability. He knew each of the victims. But what’s the motive? Why would he want into our heads?
And what do I have to do with it? What did he and I fall into?
Everything points to Elder—
Except, everything doesn’t.
Dub received a call from a woman. Someone he knew. Someone he’d race out of training to meet. Then he acked a shyft that got his body snatched out from under him and sent after me.
Miranda and Tala visited Dora together, and their lives went to shit starting the next day. Miranda said she hadn’t noticed anything particularly odd about Dora, nothing that caused any alarm. Said Dora wouldn’t let her in the apartment but she seemed okay, if a little anxious. Which Miranda thought was justified, given the circumstances.
Then Miranda went home and her husband was out and when she woke up she was in a stock.
Dora isn’t what she seems, that much is clear. She’s scared. And she’s in love with me. The other me.
But I can’t to deal with someone else’s feelings right now. I haven’t had the chance to process my own. Since I woke up in that basement I’ve been running from one crisis to another. From one preposterous revelation to the next. With each new piece of information about what I had become compressing my core of grief so tightly I can barely feel it anymore.
Even still, all this I could deal with—if that was all. But it’s not. Dora may be in love with me but she knows more than she’s letting on. She’s hiding something from me.
Why? If she’s as scared as she is. If she truly is in love with me, why hide something.
Maybe she’s afraid of how I’ll react.
Or maybe she’s more involved than she wants to let on.
I check my tab and there’s a message waiting from Dub. The last two members of counselling group, Vaelyn and Petra, have checked into the Fãngzhõu, that Reszo-only club in the Market. He’s got me on the guest list.
They’re still around, their minds seemingly intact, and they don’t seem particularly scared. Haven’t been touched by whatever curse I spread to the rest of the group. But that doesn’t mean they don’t know anything. They were witnesses to when it all went to shit.
Maybe they can fill in some holes for me. Maybe they can tell me what’s going on with Dora.
I grab my coat, call a Sküte and wait inside the wide front doors of the apartment lobby. Pinpoint snowflakes hang in the sky, reflecting the streetlights, like the air itself has crystallized.
It’s cold. Colder than it’s been in years. The kind of cold it we used to get at FS Alert, where, before digital thermometers were invented, they used alcohol in the glass because the mercury would freeze. The kind of cold that’ll cause frostbite on exposed skin in seconds.
Apparently last year, it didn’t drop below freezing once. Just my luck I skip the balmy winter and get stuck with one where the jet-stream has fucked off to Mexico, leaving the Arctic free to make up for lost time.
The Sküte’s ETA is sixty seconds when I notice someone standing across the street, against the corner of the building opposite mine, far enough away I can’t tell if it’s a him or a her—call it a boy, maybe. He’s slight, a metre and a half tall, with short, dark hair brushed forward, his hands resting in the pockets of a light jacket. No hat. Running shoes. He’s dressed for a brisk walk on a cool evening, not standing outside in sub-zero temperatures.
Then I realise who it is, the kid from outside the Ludus. He followed me here.
I start to run through the possibilities of who it could be, but give up before I get past Elder.
The only way to find out is to ask.
He’s not getting away this time.
The Sküte pulls around the corner as I step out the front doors and I let it wait, pass by the open pod on my way across the driveway, watching the kid. He sees me coming and hesitates for a long second before turning and hurrying through an open stretch of snow-crunched lawn toward Eastern Ave.
I run after him, watching his back. He reaches the intersection, and as he crosses the lights abruptly cycle behind him, putting a stream of cars between us. I ignore them, zigzag across the lanes of traffic and increase my pace when I get to the other side, just as the kid ducks down an alley halfway up the next block.
I’m full out now, trying to keep my balance on the stretches of slick, unshovelled sidewalk. I’m about to follow the kid into the alleyway when one of the city’s automated snowplows whines past me and jams itself into the alley like a cork, blocking my entrance.
Shit.
I consider running around the block, try to cut him off, but I know I won’t catch him.
Who is this guy? And what did I do to fuck up his life the last time around?
I’m tired of not knowing what the hell is going on around me.
It’s time I pulled my head out of my ass.
It’s time for some answers.
StatUS-ID
[a646:d17e:8670:511f::Finsbury/D//GAGE]
SysDate
[23:32:01. Saturday, April 20, 2058]
Would you like to access this device?
I’ve got the cuff on my neck, the Revv shyft pressed against it. I think green and the Revv injects a glimpse of its power.
23:32:42:59.
Time dilates. Now stretches out into a continuum. The room rushes in at me and snaps into sharp, high-contrast relief. My breathing turns glacial. I count to five in the lull between the deep-sea eruptions of my heartbeat.
I flick my gaze at the kitchen and wait for my eyes to get there—
23:33:00:45.
—They pass over the wallscreen where I’d assembled a collage of everything I could find about the arKade
’s location—the latest floorplans of the office building overlaid with the proposed agritower conversion plans, but not knowing how far one turned into the other before the construction shutdown made planning a glass house run-through next to impossible—and while I bought some time on a rented surveillance drone and held it at a distance to watch the ongoing activity, I’d only managed to observe the tail-end of a parade of heavy-duty lifters gliding in and out of a sheltered enclosure, dropping off large crates and leaving empty, which was of no use at all, except to confirm my suspicion that I’d found the right place, which was when I finally decided the only way to make sure I wasn’t outgunned by the stepped-up army that Kade will have certainly assembled as security was to even the odds with an enhancement of my own, the Revv—
23:33:01:12.
—Past the tall, thin-bladed snake plant I brought from our old apartment, the gift Mom had given me when I was about to leave for Africa. It was hardy, she said, even I wouldn’t be able to kill it, and she had hugged me, the way she does, or…did…both intense and distracted at the same time, maybe chastising herself for using the word kill when I was about to go off to war, or maybe wondering if I’d ever come back, before she let me go and turned away and used the back of her hand to blot the tears, and I couldn’t bear to tell her that there was no way they’d let me transport a live plant halfway across the world and had to have Dad keep it hidden and alive until I got back, and as tough as it is will die soon if I don’t give it some water—
23:33:01:29.
—To the pillar of tomato soup cases I’d ordered yesterday under the influence of my Cortex’s rendition of a caffeine binge, four twelve-can boxes stacked on the kitchen counter.
23:33:01:34.
—What have I done?
I shiver like an earthquake, seismic tremors rolling through muscle.
The Dwell was one thing, but that was necessary. No other way. Why did I just ram my head with code that does who knows what?
Because I’m about to walk my partner into what’ll likely be a heavily-guarded location populated by the Reszo underground’s most notorious figures without the slightest bit of operational intelligence, and I’m too proud to ask for help? Too stupid to know when I’m in over my head?
Because someone’s hunting me, someone I don’t know and can’t see, and being helpless in the face of a constant threat is making me edgy?
Because I need to do something, anything to keep my mind off the fact that I still haven’t found Connie’s killer, and every day that goes by with him still out there, still breathing, still capable of ripping others’ lives to shreds haunts me every second, makes me feel like a failure, like I’m failing her and myself by not living up to the one good reason I was restored.
It’s all these things and none of them.
The truth is: there is no reason. No good one anyway. Except I’d been planning the operation for five hours and was getting nowhere, was considering calling the Inspector and confessing everything and the lure of my brain working at light speed was enough to overcome the taboo of breaking the law or the danger of my rithm being snatched out from under me.
I did it because I want to win and I’m not above cheating.
Because I have nothing to lose.
If my Cortex is scrambled, then this is all over. If I’m caught, then this is all over. I’ll do what I have to even if that means—-
23:34:59.
Reality rubber bands to real-time with a momentum that snaps my head back.
Two seconds in the world and an eternity in my head.
The Revv asks if I’ll grant it full access to my protected rithm, and before I can give myself time to decide different, I think green.
Time peels back from the surface of reality, exposes the machine code of the universe, and as the seconds stretch out into eternity I imagine this must be how it feels to live as a god.
I don’t know how I’ll ever go back.
Look out, Kade. I’m coming for you.
End: Part Two
Continued in...
Lost Time: Part Three Shyft. Available now at Amazon.
Lost Time: Part Four Social Faith. Available now at Amazon.
Lost Time: Part Five Sync. Coming Mar 26, 2016.
Ready to keep going? Get Lost Time: Part Three [Shyft] at Amazon.
Thanks for reading.
Glossary
AMP. (Artificial Mind Pattern) Advanced neural code approximations running on cortical processors. They are classified as superintelligences but their use is governed and their operating code secured. Only licensed government agencies and select corporations are allowed to employ AMPs. The Ministry of Human Standards is responsible for monitoring and tracking down illicit use whenever it’s discovered.
BioSkyn. An artificial, lab-grown body. Components printed a layer of cells at a time and then assembled and implanted with an optical processing Cortex.
Biosynth. Someone who uses geneblocks to assemble unique, life forms—bacteria capable of operating to order to create atomically precise circuitry, manufacture drugs, enhance the immune system or replace biological functions. Plants that grow directly into furniture. Or wholly fabricated animals for domestic or military uses.
Bit-head. Xero. Sudo. Derogatory slang for a restored personality.
Bright. An extropian, far leftist, digital human philosophy. Brights believe in a creator of the Universe—or ’the system’—and that humanity is one of a billion billion probable physical manifestations of rules that began to play out at the moment of creation. God didn’t create us, but it allowed the conditions for us to exist, like a scientist fine-tuning an experiment, and humanity its results.
Continuance of Personality Act. The set of legal guarantees allowing for the transfer of a consciousness from organic to digital.
Cortex. Second Skyn’s in-house neural prosthetic. Now common slang for any neural prosthetic.
Cortical Field. The composite image of a scanned consciousness. Since consciousness is stored holographically, the stronger the field, the stronger the fidelity to the original personality.
Cypher. A rithm without an official restoration record from the Ministry of Human Standards.
Digital Life Extension. Extending a human consciousness past brain death as a psychorithm. The personality is captured, translated to a psychorithm and the resulting rithm loaded onto a prosthetic mind implanted in a bioSkyn. The Continuance of Personality Act provides digital humans with all the legal rights of a fully organic human, while Human Standards laws limit the extent to which digital humanity can augment its existence. DLE is fraught with political and social turbulence.
Dwell. A simple shyft that allows the user to speed up or slow down stored memory playback.
Fate. The rapidly growing corporation bringing immortality to the masses and hiring out low-cost knowledge work, all while reducing governmental expenditures around the globe.
Fleshmith. Someone who uses modified Geneblocks and scaflabs to produce designer bodies and organs.
Genitect. Someone who architects and encodes custom genblocks, the genetic code building blocks used to form the genomes of synthetic lifeforms.
Headspace. A digital human’s customizable home running onboard their prosthetic brain.
The Hereafter. The brand-name of a virtual reflection of the real world, where digital humans can visit the living. It is the largest, and most populous, digital virt.
Human Standards. The legal baselines limiting human life extension, physical augmentation and neural enhancement.
IMP. (Intelligent Mediating Personality) Originally designed to assist with daily communication, the IMP’s capabilities quickly expanded to become a full-fledged digital assistant that learns over time. Upgradable with personality sprites.
The Link. The world-wide stream of conversations, sensor data, cameras, feeds, virts, games, and everything else that arose from the internet.
Lost Time. The minutes or hours of memory between personal
ity back-ups lost due to a pattern decoherence or Cortex damage.
Lowboys. A gang of low-rep petty criminals. Kids, mostly.
Ministry of Human Standards. The government agency tasked with enforcing Human Standard laws.
Neurohertz. (NHz or N) 1N is the average speed of human neural processing. Human Standards limit the function of prosthetic brains to 1.15N.
Past-Standard. The only Human Standard criminal offence. Past-Standard encompasses everything related to genetic augmentation and manipulation of a mind or body past established human norms. Past-Standard Offences and Psychorithm Infractions often intersect, causing friction between investigating agencies.
Prodeo/Prodian. What digital-only personalities against the restrictive Human Standard laws call themselves: Homo Prodeo. From the latin "prodeo": to go forward, and "pro Deo": ’before’ and ’the supreme being.’
Psychorithm. The Conscious Algorithm. The human brain’s self-sustaining, recursive algorithmic neural code translated into digital.
Psychorithm Crime Unit. The Toronto Police Services unit responsible for investigating crimes by and against the local Reszo population.
Psyphon. To extract a rithm from its Cortex by force.
Recovered. A psychorithm is recovered from a dying or unhealthy brain and imprinted onto a cortical field.
ReJuv. The genetic reset performed once a year through the intravenous injection of a gene-regulating cocktail.