Darkside Dreams - The Complete First Series

by A. King Bradley

  There was nothing on the panels. Nothing meaningful, anyway. Just gibberish phrases, scrambled nonsense with fake distances.

  She turned around just in time to see the gate shut and seal behind them. On the other side, a guard who refused to meet her eyes through up a huge, heavy switch. A faint, deep thrumming sounded, fading to silence after a moment as the frequency fell beyond hearing.

  The fence had not been electrified before. Now it was. Including the gate itself, she thought. Whereas an electric fence was mildly damaging and unpleasant to an organic human, it was potentially fatal to a synth. How hadn't she seen that before? Obviously, the electric fence wasn't for her protection. It wasn't to keep marauding islanders out. It was to keep her in. Her and her friends.

  Alifred was having the same thought, smiling nervously as he looked around.

  "Some party," he said. "I thought it would be more quaint. More freeform. But I guess

  Bowen's cooked up a whole theme for us..."

  "Island captivity, the thrill ride of the century," one of the other girls said.

  Hearing her voice, Seeva now recognized her. It was Glisha Neal, a political commentator who focused her venomous tongue on organic policies and all their shortcomings and prejudices. Her acerbic opinions had won her many enemies, as well as a small following of loyal and outspoken fans who often wreaked havoc in her name.

  Marina was already wandering down the path, whistling to herself.

  "Where are you going?" Alifred asked.

  "The only place I can go, darling," she said. "Care to follow?"

  They went with her, all of them in single file on the narrow path. The jungle plants brushed their shoulders on either side, leaving smears of humidity on their clothing.

  Suddenly, from among the trees, their came the echoing and synchronous cry of a dozen jungle birds. Seeva jumped in startlement, looking around for the source. But all she saw were loudspeakers, perched and camouflaged in the trees.

  The bird sound fell, fading into human laughter.

  "Did y'all like my kookaburra impression?" the voice of Bowen Creedy drawled.

  "I've been working on it for a long time. Even longer than I've been working on this, the thrill ride of the century, to rephrase what Miss Neal said.”

  “Are you spying on us? Where are you?” Glisha Neal asked.

  “I might have listened to a thing or two,” Creedy admitted through the loudspeakers, still obviously amused with himself. “I am not inside the reserve just yet. I will be soon though. But I just thought you should know that a few of my friends are already in there with ya. Might wanna keep an eye out, is all I’m sayin’. And remember, if you see them, chances are they have already seen you!”

  The speakers crackled. The transmission ended.

  "What the hell?" someone whispered.

  Even Marina looked doubtful. She glanced back, waited to see if anyone would answer her unspoken questions, then kept walking down the path.

  "This is… not what I anticipated," Alifred said nervously as he glanced from Marina to Seeva.

  Seeva called up the memorized images, the map Bowen had shown them. So far, it seemed to be accurate. At least as far as the path went. It started as a single branch, but soon it would begin to join with others, spreading into a complex maze. This ranch was very large, but it was made to seem even larger by the dense walls of jungle between the paths. You could be ten feet away from someone - or closer - and neither of you would ever know it.

  Also on the map was a structure. It should be coming up on the left soon, before the first branch. And yes, there it was. A short length of path led to the tiny clearing where it sat. Marina was already jogging up to it, and Seeva broke into a trot to beat her there.

  At first, the building seemed to be an open bar. The type you'd see at a resort. But when she got closer, Seeva saw that all the bottles were empty, and the stools were cardboard cutouts.

  "Look," Marina said, stooping behind the bar. She came up with a little cardboard sign, on which someone had written: Made you look!

  "Good one, Creedy," Alifred scoffed. "Just what the hell does he think he's doing?"

  Before the last word was out of his mouth, a spray of something warm hit Seeva's face and one of the empty bottles exploded into fine dust. Only then did she hear the gunshot, the rolling thunderous bang through the jungle. She turned her head quickly, sucking in a breath. For a moment, she thought she saw movement in the tops of the trees, a hundred feet out. Someone climbing down. Or moving into position for another shot.

  By the time she turned her head back, Alifred was on the ground in a spreading pool of synth fluid. She saw the entry wound in the back of his head, a clean hole an inch in diameter. The exit wound must be tremendous. She couldn't see it. And she couldn't see anyone else, any of the other girls. They had already scattered. As the ringing in her ears died down, she was finally able to hear the fading screams as they all went running down pathways.

  "Too slow, Seeva," Bowen's voice rang out from the trees. "You've got to be faster than that. Next time, it might be your life..."

  She started to run at last, too frightened to be angry.

  CHAPTER 9

  ◆◆◆

  Bowen set down the handset, chuckling to himself, and turned to the side. An assistant immediately began dabbing at his face again.

  "How's it looking?" Bowen asked.

  "Just about done," said the assistant. "There! That should do it. Take a look."

  Bowen turned to his mirror and couldn't help but grin. He looked like the jungle come alive, molded into a human form. The perfect camouflage. Better than a ghillie suit.

  Silent and slick.

  "God, I can’t wait to get that pretty bitches head on my wall," he said. “Did you see her? Isn’t she the best lookin’ thing you’ve ever seen in your life?”

  “She is beautiful, sir. Surely,” the assistant offered in obligatory agreement.

  “You know if you want a piece of the action, I’ve got some extra gear,” Creedy offered.

  "It’s not for me, sir. Hunting synths really isn’t my thing. I’m… afraid to be honest. I heard they can be dangerous," said the assistant. "I'd rather stay right in here, safe and sound."

  "There ain’t a whole lotta danger in this, man," Bowen replied. "We have guns and jungle experience. They don't. It's a slaughter. The only hunt where you get to kill something smarter than you are. And the kicker is, they don't even want to believe that they are smarter, they're so hell bent on this 'equality' nonsense... Anyway, make sure to have a good-sized batch of margarita ready to go for afterward. It's a hot one out there."

  CHAPTER 10

  ◆◆◆

  So much for memorization. So much for the map. Seeva was so focused on getting away from the scene of Alifred's death that she immediately forgot to keep track of where she was going. She took branches at random, blowing past buildings without a second look. At some point she took her shoes off, which she was proud of. Some part of her terror-numbed brain recognized that barefoot running was quieter.

  Now she was out of breath. Overheating. The air was stifling, it clung to her like a pile of wet towels. She doubled over, staring at her bare feet and breathing. Trying to make her brain work again. All she could think about was how dirty her feet were. Plus how strangely syrupy Alifred's leaking lifeblood had been.

  Another shot broke her out of her reverie. She jumped up straight, expecting to be dead in the next second. The shot had originated from nearby, but had been aimed at something in the opposite direction. She could tell by the way the sound waves propagated, how they faded and bounced back to her.

  She started to move again. A sensible jogging pace, rather than an outright run. She stayed cognizant of her surroundings, listening intently, keeping her head on a swivel. It was perhaps a better idea just to shove herself behind some trees and wait it out. Except they wouldn't stop hunting until they had her. And she needed to reunite with the others. With someone.<
br />
  "Seeva..."

  She looked up and around, then realized it was just Bowen's crackly voice again, coming out of the speakers.

  "Let me ask you a question, hun," he said. "Did you really believe all that bullshit you said about oak trees and pinecones… or palm trees, or whatever the hell you said. You know what I’m talkin’ about.”

  Seeva fought hard to ignore Creedy’s voice. He was taunting her, and she knew it. Likely dropping hints to let her know that he had watched her broadcast. And that he was probably behind the attack that triggered the global data sphere’s defenses to temporarily shut her down.

  “You don’t want to talk to ol’ Creedy, that’s fine, darlin’. But you should know that I’m comin’ for ya.”

  Seeva continued onward without a word.

  “I’ll see ya soon, darlin’…” Creedy said darkly.

  Seeva forced herself to stay calm, to maintain her speed. He would probably just come in the same way they had, through the gate, and move out from there. But then again, he probably had other entry points scattered around. Secret hatches, maybe even underground tunnels. No reason to worry about that, though. Just a waste of brainpower.

  All she could do was stay alert, react to each threat as it came and no sooner.

  And no later, either. Or she'd wind up like Alifred.

  A third shot had just gone off, rolling through the silent jungle air like the crack of a whip.

  The sound made her flinch, duck her head slightly. She waited briefly, for what she didn't know. As the sound of the shot faded, her ears caught a gentle rustling in the trees up ahead. And a grunting voice, someone struggling to break through the tangle.

  Fear shot through Seeva. She darted to her left, hiding herself behind the thick trunk of an old tree. She slid her head to the side, peeking around the tree, ready to run at any second.

  The person coming out of the jungle had one shoe on. The other was nowhere to be seen. Her clothing was torn, and her usually fabulous hair was in a pitiful disarray. Her beautiful face was twisted into a mask of desperate fear and heartbreaking confusion. It was Marina. Marina, a creature designed to live large and be happy, to bring a bright light to any room she entered. It just wasn't right to see her like this. The thought that Marina was mortal, that people could possibly want her dead, was just as disturbing to Seeva as the sight of her beloved Alifred dead on the ground.

  Seeva cupped a hand to her mouth. "Psst!"

  Marina looked over, tensing up to flee, and immediately began to tear up when she saw her friend. The two of them came together on the path, falling into one another. Seeva wanted to cry but Marina was already crying herself. That role had been filled, and so the role of the stoic one, the one who had her shit together, was left to Seeva.

  Marina was saying a lot of things through her blubbering, but only one word was recognizable. "Alifred..."

  "I know," Seeva said, rubbing her friend's back. "But we can't think about Alifred right now. I wish I could give us both the time to grieve, Marina, but we have more pressing concerns."

  As if to put an exclamation mark at the end of her statement, a fourth shot rang out. Seeva jumped again. Four shots meant four dead. Unless some of them were misses... but she doubted it. She had seen the lethal precision of the shot that killed Alifred. Straight through the cyber brain. The only good way to terminate a synth.

  By default, the nano machines in Alifred’s synth fluid would attempt to repair his damaged cyber brain, but they would fail, because the cyber brain was simply too sophisticated. And even if they were able to somehow miraculously fully restore the physical aspects of his brain there would be no way to recover the virtual parts that were destroyed by the gunshot. The memories, the experiences, the parts of him that lived only in cyber space. Technically, synths were fully capable of making backups or copies of their minds, but a vast majority of them never did. This was just one of the many self-imposed sacrifices that synths made in an effort to fit in with their organic counterparts. Alifred was never one to merely fit in with the crowd but Seeva didn’t know if he had ever gone as far as to back up his persona. As far as she could tell… he was gone for good.

  Marina nodded her head, sniffed once, and was suddenly quite sober. She wiped her eyes, blinked away the humidity that had condensed on her forehead, and turned around, beckoning Seeva up the path. They ducked into the narrow, tangled corridor where Marina had hid before. The entry point was choked, difficult to see past, but after a few meters it opened into a coffin-sized clearing. The ground was covered in a bed of leaves, too flat and decayed to have been put there by Marina.

  "I think someone else was hiding here, once upon a time," Marina said. "This isn't the first time they’ve done this. This was someone's sanctuary..."

  She bent down, rifled in a tangle of plant fibers, and came up with an empty aluminum can. Rusted through in a few spots.

  "I don’t think they made it," she added. "We’re next Seeva. This is all that we have to look forward to."

  "Only if we stop thinking," Seeva replied. "If we're going to die anyway, why worry about it? Why be afraid?"

  "Easy to say while we're hiding in here," Marina grunted.

  "Let’s use what time we have to figure this thing out, Marina. There has to be a way to survive this. It can't be a perfect system."

  Marina shrugged. "Why not?"

  "Because..." Seeva looked at the sky, feeling a strange chill in the smothering heat. "Because it wasn't designed by synths. We've spent years trying to blend in with them, to fit in with the organics. And that’s what we’re doing now. Relying only on the skills that we share with them for our survival. Maybe now it's time to let ourselves be ourselves. And figure out what we can really do. It’s either that… or die."

  CHAPTER 11

  ◆◆◆

  Bowen stalked alone along the path, grinning to himself, barely holding in his laughter. He heard a few shots, which meant the flock of prey was dwindling. He felt the familiar thrill, the urgent fear of missing out on a kill. He moved quickly, recklessly, bringing his handgun to bear on everything that moved. He mostly encountered birds, having flown easily over the fence. But he saw a few small mammals as well, little critters who had managed to burrow under.

  He did not shoot any of them. They weren’t satisfying enough. Killing animals no longer gave him the same thrill that he got whenever he killed a synth. To Creedy, synths were perfect beings in every way but one. Their lack of confidence and their rejection of anger curtailed their progress. They wanted to coexist with humankind, but Bowen knew they could be so much more. They could be the greatest threat his species had ever faced. That is exactly why he took great pleasure in ending their lives. It was like shooting down a god, standing over its dying body and smiling, content in the knowledge that it would never again possess the dormant potential to rule over you.

  Another shot burst through the air. Not far from where Bowen was. He turned in a circle, holding a finger to one ear. Pinpointing the source of the shot. He turned back around and sprinted for the next trail branch, where he hooked a left and continued puffing along, holding the gun perfectly stable in his hands. Ducking under the over-reaching branches, the overgrown limbs that seemed to choke out these trails with supernatural speed.

  This ranch was his favorite place to be. His true home, the happiest spot on Earth. He knew it like the back of his hand. And he knew exactly where this most recent shot had come from.

  ◆◆◆

  Because this was such a small country, and unfriendly to synths, the data sphere was quite limited. All Seeva could see, when she let herself drift, was a heavily encrypted stronghold. A giant crystal maze she had no way of getting into. It was the private data sphere of Creedy's ranch. If she had enough time - a week or so - she could break in.

  The rest of the sphere around here was an empty wasteland, the opposite of the density and teeming life of the jungle. She saw some faint, weak signatures in the distance, just at the l
imit of her cyber senses. Those must be the few data slates owned by certain well-to-do people in the city of Irapo. She couldn't reach them from here, because she could not physically move close enough to establish a good connection. Even if she could, would those people care enough to help her?

  They were on their own. So it was time to move to plan B.

  How best to combat the hunters who were after them? Seeva and Marina wracked their brains, coming up with a handful of ideas... but none of them could be considered useful, not when they knew so little of the hunters themselves. So it was time to get a closer look.

  They moved to the mouth of Marina's hiding place, crouched behind a thick stand of bushes, and waited. They did not move, except to brush away the bugs that kept trying to climb up their ankles.

  Finally, the shot came. They immediately shot to their feet and ran toward it at full speed. Using her memorized map, and the built-in functions of her cyber brain, Seeva approximated the distance to the shot's source. They took every path that seemed to lead in the right direction, and within a couple of minutes they were approaching the spot.

  They dropped speed and took to the trees, climbing into the canopy on opposite sides of the path. Tangled vines made climbing easy, and they reached the spreading hearts of the trees at the same time. Seeva looked down, checking her color against that of the branches, vines and trunks around her. The two girls had used the native mud, smearing it over their pale northern skin and their garish partygoer clothing. It was a good enough blend, she thought. Unless someone stared right at her, she didn't think she'd be seen.

  They waited, clinging loosely to the trees, feeling themselves sway gently with every passing breeze. The jungle buzzed with life. Each sound brought a psychosomatic tickle to Seeva's neck or ankle, as though an army of spiders was constantly marching along her body. She glanced to the side, at the other tree, and saw Marina cringing with impatience and fear.