‘We’re just trying to establish the facts, Miss Volkov, and…’
‘You’re trying to establish a case,’ Arianna cut him off. ‘You’re not looking at facts, you’re making up connections and hoping that they’ll stick.’
Han smiled without warmth. ‘A person will go a long way to protect their immortality.’
Arianna maintained a calm expression as she replied.
‘Including not making things worse than they already were. I have no intention of using my upload.’
‘So you say,’ Myles agreed. ‘But what people say and what they actually do often bear little resemblance to each other.’
Arianna almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. ‘If I was going to kill Alexei, why would I go to the trouble of burning him to death? Do you think he just lay down and let it happen?’
‘You tell us,’ Han suggested.
Arianna banged a fist down on the table. ‘So you guys can call it case–closed and go on your merry way? Like hell. I want my lawyer. And what’s happened to Alexei Volkov? Has he been uploaded yet?’
‘We’re waiting on confirmation from Re–Volution,’ Myles said. ‘They’ve been informed of the situation.’
‘Misinformed you mean,’ Arianna said.
‘How often do you attend your church, Arianna?’ Han asked.
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘I think that you know.’
Arianna stared at the detective for a long beat. ‘My church does not condone terrorism.’
‘Does any?’ Han asked rhetorically. ‘But we both know that many attacks have been made against the Re–Volution building by religiously motivated groups of all kinds, including the Hope Reunion Church and....’
‘I minister at my church because there’s not much else to have faith in, detective,’ Arianna replied, hearing the bitterness still in her own voice, ‘least of all the law. Since the idea of an afterlife was erased by Re–Volution there aren’t many places of worship left. It’s not surprising the radicals use them to plan their attacks.’
Han Reeves smiled tightly but did not reply.
Arianna could not blame the detective’s reasoning. Since the emergence of the first holosap the faiths of countless cultures around the world had begun to collapse like a deck of cards. She figured that it was probably fair to admit that this was not entirely the fault of Re–Volution: organised religion had been crumbling for centuries beforehand. But now the last nail in the figurative coffin had been hammered firmly in place by the realisation that death was no longer the final event in a life. That a new species of man had emerged for whom immortality was a realistic proposition, for whom sickness and frailty were a thing of the past, for whom the future was eternally bright. They even had a new, Latin name for them:
Homo immortalis.
The name sent a shudder down her spine, coined as it was by the newly uploaded billionaires and former politicians, their heavily greased palms now glowing in holographic glory as they fought for the right to continue expanding their bloated empires from beyond the grave. Laws had been passed in parliament to prevent them from ever holding power or chairing the corporations they had built during their lifetimes, but everybody knew that the law was a charade. Lobbying was part and parcel of politics, and with the growing holosap community consisting entirely of an elite able to afford the tremendous cost of being uploaded, there was no shortage of funding for their demands.
Soon, the Court of Human Rights was forging laws preventing the holosap’s power source from ever being switched off. Then came the laws allowing holosaps oversight of the sprawling corporations they had left behind, and laws allowing them the right to walk amongst the living. It was inevitable that eventually they would achieve the status of a new species, Homo immortalis, and that they would then be able to sit in Parliament, vote once again, and begin the business of what Arianna believed would be a new class war.
Those left behind, those for whom faith in life after death and a God was the foundation of their existence suddenly found themselves staring gods in the face and knowing not what to do about it. Violence directed at the holosaps as an abomination only strengthened the case for Homo immortalis’s ascent to power, the uprising playing directly into their hands as the most aggressive and dangerous of their opponents were arrested and jailed one after the other. Now, the holosaps had conquered in all but name and the two thousand year rule of the church was but a faint memory lingering in the minds of the faithful few who remained.
‘Strange,’ Han Reeves said, ‘how many religiously motivated terrorist attacks there are, and how few people are still able to call them as such.’
‘They use religion as an excuse.’
‘They use it as a reason,’ Han snapped back, ‘and they always have. It is possible, Ms Volkov, that you are innocent of any crime. But right now, you are our number one suspect and every piece of evidence we have points to you as the guilty party.’
Arianna managed to keep her mouth shut. Right now she knew that the detective was trying to get her riled up and it was working. Say nothing until the lawyer gets here. Just hold them at bay until then.
A knock sounded at the door. It opened and a desk sergeant poked his head into the room.
‘Alexei Volkov is here, detectives.’
***
10
The holosap projection platform was located in what Arianna assumed doubled as both an observation room and a place where suspects could be lined up for identification by their beleaguered victims. A one–way mirror looked out into a room where a height chart was crudely tacked to the wall.
Standing over the platform was Alexei Volkov.
Arianna stared at him from behind the mirror in the observation room as she stood between Han Reeves and Myles Bourne, her wrists back in the steel cuffs as two police detectives from the team entered the room opposite. Alexei watched them as they walked in and spoke to him.
‘Our apologies, sir,’ intoned one of the policemen, ‘for having you brought here so soon after your unfortunate experience.’
Alexei nodded, his features blanched of colour and his expression trapped somewhere between outrage and bemusement. Arianna caught glimpses of him trying to adjust to his new and unfamiliar body and surroundings as he fielded the detective’s questions.
‘Sir, you are aware that you are now deceased, correct?’
Alexei nodded vacantly as he stared over the police officer’s heads at the mirror opposite, no doubt fascinated by his own reflection. Arianna saw him reach up and touch his face, but of course he felt nothing, not yet. His fingers blended in with his cheek and he yanked them away quickly.
‘Can you speak, sir, for the benefit of the recorders?’
‘Yes,’ Alexei replied, and then seemed surprised by the sound of his own voice and looked down at the projection platform beneath him. ‘Yes, I am aware that I have died.’
Arianna knew that the voice was not generated by Alexei’s holosap but by speakers built into the projection platform. Speech was made by the holosap within the quantum storage unit where their digital selves truly resided, down in the Re–Volution building’s basement servers. Digital distortion ensured that the timbre of the voice matched that of the deceased’s natural body and the fact that all of their projection data was emitted at the speed of light meant that there was no detectable lapse between physical movement and the emitted speech.
‘Good,’ replied the detective. ‘Can you tell me what happened to you?’
‘I was at home,’ Alexei said. ‘I went for a lie down. It’s my age you see. I find that I need a nap in the afternoons. Am I really dead?’
Han Reeves glanced down at Arianna, who spoke on reflex as she watched Alexei.
‘His brain hasn’t yet connected all of its neural pathways in their new form. It’ll take a little while but he’ll soon feel his body again, sense his surroundings.’
‘You mean he can’t feel anything?’ Myles asked.
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‘He can see and hear,’ Arianna replied. ‘The essential, deepest parts of the brain reconnect first upon upload because they’re so primal. Other functions come later, like emotional connections, fine coordination and motor skills.’
‘But he can’t touch anything, right?’ Han murmured.
‘Not really,’ Arianna confirmed. ‘But within a few days the brain fills in the gaps, just like it does in a dream. Although he’ll never touch anything again in a real sense, if he touches his face tomorrow his brain will let him think that he can feel it.’
Myles Bourne shook his head in apparent disgust as Alexei went on.
‘… I don’t remember much. I thought that there was somebody in my home, and then I was attacked from behind.’
‘Did you see any faces?’ asked one of the detectives. ‘Any identifying marks?’
‘Nothing,’ Alexei replied. ‘They dragged me into the bedroom and tied me down, then injected me with a paralysing agent. Then one of them ignited some kind of device beneath the bed. I could smell the burning, like chemicals of some kind. They ran, and I…’ Alexei frowned, and then his eyes filled with horror. ‘I burned, alive,’ he whispered.
‘His memory is returning in full,’ Arianna realised.
The other detective leaned forward. ‘Who was the last person to see you alive, Alexei?’
Alexei’s brow furrowed as he thought.
‘Arianna, my daughter,’ he said finally. ‘We spoke briefly via holo–link.’
‘Can you confirm whether Miss Volkov had access to your home after the meeting?’
Alexei glared down at the detective. ‘No, why?’ Then his eyes flared wide. ‘Do you have Arianna in custody?’
‘Sir,’ the detective said, ‘right now we are pursuing all possible avenues of investigation and…’
‘My attackers were all men,’ Alexei growled. ‘Not one of them was less than six feet tall!’
‘That may be so,’ the detective agreed, ‘but they gained access to your home without forcing entry. Somebody had to let them in.’
‘And you think that person was Arianna?’ Alexei uttered. ‘Let me tell you, young man, that even if in some bizarre alternate universe Arianna had decided to have me murdered she would not have been able to do so in my own home.’
‘Why not, sir?’
‘Because Arianna does not have a pass code to my security system.’
‘Your own daughter does not have the code to your home?’
‘Arianna is somewhat independent, detective. She prefers to live her own life and left home young for college and university. We always arranged to meet in advance.’
‘Could she have obtained a code?’ the detective questioned. ‘Perhaps by observation?’
‘It is doubtful,’ Alexei said. ‘I changed the code regularly, and only ever reset it after people had left the building.’
The detective squinted thoughtfully. ‘You take many precautions, sir. Is it normal for you to be so…’
‘Paranoid?’ Alexei finished the sentence for the officer.
‘For want of a better word.’
‘I am a billionaire,’ Alexei said without pride, as though his wealth were a burden, ‘and there are many people who would wish to see me dead just for my success. Our world is suffering, most people are poor and desperate. To see people like myself live in luxury, safe in the knowledge that when we die we will in fact live again, is reason enough for desperate people to do desperate things, don’t you think?’
‘Have you been threatened before?’ the detective asked.
‘Every day of my life,’ Alexei said, ‘every single day. But if you’re about to ask me whether I knew my attacker, or whether I could identify them in a line–up here, then I am sorry detective. As much as I would like to do so, I saw no faces and heard no voices. The only thing that I can say with absolute certainty is that Miss Volkov cannot have been directly responsible for my death as none of my attackers were female. In fact, as soon as this interview is complete I would like to meet her once again at her office or home. I am overwhelmed by the sense that I am made of a feeble column of air and if I move too quickly I will blow away with the wind.’
Han Reeves looked down at Arianna, who spoke softly.
‘A common psychological reaction to being uploaded,’ she explained. ‘The holosap cannot understand how they can be alive and yet have no physical substance. Some become terrified of moving or speaking in case they fall apart. The doctors usually call it vertigo – like the fear of falling.’
Reeves nodded but didn’t reply.
Alexei Volkov abruptly vanished as the connection was terminated and the detectives left the room and joined Reeves and Arianna in the observation room.
‘I’m guessing that’s sufficient evidence to get you off my damned back?’ she inquired of Reeves.
‘Not nearly,’ Han shot back as he removed her cuffs. ‘But right now without evidence we cannot hold you for more than twenty–four hours. If the terrorist attack produces a second lead I’ll be advised to cut you loose.’
‘You must be devastated.’
‘I’m a patient man,’ Han replied as he looked at her. ‘I don’t give in easily.’
‘Good,’ Arianna said, ‘then get out of here and start looking for whoever blew that building up and murdered my father, because it sure as hell wasn’t me! I suggest you let me go right now before I call my lawyer and start proceedings against you and this department for harassment and slander.’
Han Reeves held her gaze for several moments and then the lop–sided grin reappeared.
‘As you wish,’ he replied as he stepped back and gestured to the door with a grand sweep of his arm.
Arianna kept her chin held high as she walked from the room and turned left for the exit. Moments later, Han’s voice called after her.
‘Ma’am?’
Arianna rolled her eyes as she looked over her shoulder. ‘Yes?’
Han leaned against the door frame with his hands in his pockets, smiled and gestured with a nod of his head toward the opposite end of the corridor. ‘The exit’s that way.’
Arianna managed a snort of irritation as she whirled on the spot and marched past him, ignoring the smug grin plastered across his face.
***
11
The city could seem such an alien place sometimes, filled with countless souls all on their crowded journeys and yet entirely alone.
Arianna watched through a window of the elevated train as it rattled between the jumbled masses of glossy black towers that reflected a galaxy of city lights shimmering through mists drifting like ghosts through the night. Crouched between the soaring blocks were ancient buildings preserved by historians and charities determined that their crumbling remains stand defiant against the equally beleaguered edifices of modern man. Their meagre, blocky hulks lay in deep shadow with no lights to warm their depths.
The E–train was empty but for a few late night commuters. The mist caused rivulets of rain to spill across the window, further blurring the cityscape.
Arianna looked away from the darkness outside and remained with her thoughts until the E–train eased into her stop and she disembarked. Cold, damp night air tainted by the smell of decay that filled the city, the distant hiss of vehicles and crowds drifting through the darkness.
Arianna hurried down off the platforms and onto streets slick with moisture. She walked alone, her heels clicking on the sidewalks as she fingered a personal defence device in her pocket and glanced over her shoulder every few seconds as the train hummed away overhead.
Nobody appeared from the shadows or watched her from windows. Nobody cared.
Arianna reached the church, opened the heavy side door and closed it behind her, triple–latching it before letting out a breath that felt as though it had been trapped in her lungs for an hour. Jeez, what a day. She walked through the church, illuminated only by a pair of softly glowing lamps near the altar, and through into her living quarters. Sh
e hit the lights, revelling in their warm glow as she headed for a shower.
She took her time, and was feeling almost human again when she noticed the transmission light blinking for attention from across the living room as she walked in while drying her hair with a towel. She strode across and hit a button on a small panel. A digitized voice purred back at her.
‘You have one transmission request: press one to accept, two to delete, three to…’
Arianna cut the voice off with a jab of one finger into a keypad. A small ping let her know that her acceptance had been sent. Moments later the transmission platform in her apartment hummed and glowed into life. Alexei Volkov appeared before her, shimmering in the softly lit apartment as though he were somehow radioactive.
‘What on earth happened to you today rebyohnuk?’ he asked, his face wrought with concern. ‘You look tired.’
‘Everything, pretty much,’ she replied, shaking the towel through her long brown hair. ‘I was blown up, taken to the scene of your murder and then arrested all in one afternoon.’
‘The Re–Volution building,’ Alexei said. ‘I heard about it almost as soon as I was uploaded. Apparently they had to use an off site storage facility to run my upload process. It took a little longer than usual. I’m lucky to be here: another few seconds and I wouldn’t have made it.’
‘Are you okay?’ Arianna asked. ‘No confusion, memory lapses, neurological issues, anything like that?’
‘I’m fine,’ Alexei insisted, opening his hands palm outward. ‘They got all of me, I think. It’s you I’m worried about.’
Arianna tossed her towel aside and brushed her hair back.
‘You’ve just been brutally murdered,’ she said, ‘I survived and it’s me you’re worried about?’
Alexei smiled and shrugged. ‘It’s a new world and it feels strange, but that doesn’t mean I forget who my family are.’
After Life (Power Reads Book 2) Page 8