Othella (Arcadian Heights)

by Therin Knite

  "Yes, I’m sick." In the head. I don’t quite remember the past year very well. Sure, I remember Clarissa’s dead body. But not so much anything else. It’s a blur. A scramble of time and space and white walls and needles. There’s a chunk of three weeks or so—the weeks after I received the photos—that is nothing but a pitch black void. Reggie has informed me those three weeks are best left forgotten.

  "I’m sorry to hear that." Q clears his throat. "Can I help you with something?"

  "Yes, you can." I scrutinize the man with the stark white hair and ever-genial disposition. Public disposition. "I would like to talk to my daughter."

  Q’s expression doesn’t change. Thoughtful. A slight smile. "Ah, Marco. You know that’s against the rules." A small hand wave. "I understand your feelings perfectly, though, especially given your condition." A low hum. "Perhaps I can bend the rules and pass Dr. Salt a message? Nothing that requires an answer. I can’t open a channel of communication, you understand. But maybe a little something. The community has had a good relationship with South Sydian. I don’t want to create any tension between us."

  Always a diplomat, Mr. Q. In a normal situation with a normal degree of longing to know my daughter’s status, I would accept such an offer without complaint. But, of course, the very fact I can’t speak with Clarissa is the problem. Q will say she’s fine if I ask. The picture of her corpse will say she’s dead if I look at it. What a conundrum.

  Do I trust the man who controls the flow of information in and out of the Heights? The man who smiles a bit too often and compromises a bit too well? Or do I trust the harasser who smacked me in the sanity with a folder full of bodies? Who heaved the revelation of the century at my face and then went quiet? No more messages. Nothing.

  "Marco?" Q says. "Would you like me to pass that message on, or...?"

  "Actually, I would like to give you a message instead." I blink slowly, watching the waves crash against the sand, dragging layers of it away only to bring them back again. The same cycle. Never ending.

  I can’t stand it. Things have to change. For the worse. For the better. Stagnation is death.

  I grab the corners of my flex tablet and lift it to eye level. Q’s serene expression falters at the sight of my face. I haven’t shaved in a few days, and the circles beneath my eyes are a dark violet, nearing black. I’m a specter of the former Marco Salt, the one with the easy grins and the rousing monologues. It’s been a year and a half since I was last capable of thinking clearly. But now the migraines have subsided, the emotional trauma has faded to an ugly scar, and the drive to create the new and wonderful I built my lifework on has been rerouted to a more relevant task: search and destroy.

  "What message?" Q’s temperate smile begins to wane. "Marco?"

  I stretch my lips as wide and high as they will go. "I know."

  Q’s composure ripples. "What?"

  "I know."

  He drops the façade.

  "I know."

  Morphs from amiable spokesperson to cold and calculating killer.

  "I know."

  Stares me down with oil black eyes.

  "I know."

  Smiles a smile of off-white razors.

  "I know."

  Says, "Do you now?"

  "Yes." My chest hurts. I haven’t breathed in two minutes. I can’t breathe at all. Clarissa’s lifeless face flashes through my mind over and over.

  Q’s voice falls an octave. "That is most unfortunate, Marco." He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "I suspected you were the recipient of the pictures, but I couldn’t prove it. Couldn’t trace the message. Thanks for your admission. I’m afraid, however, this means we have to terminate our working relationship." There’s a subtle shift in his monstrous face. A twitch of his lips. A signal?

  God.

  I breathe.

  And drop to the floor a second before the window explodes.

  4

  Georgette

  ( 1 Week Ago )

  It takes Adele Marks five minutes to regain some shred of dignity. I watch her fidget in her sleep, mumbling something incoherent about DNA sequences. I poke her with the tip of my pump a couple times, and she grunts. When her eyes finally flutter open, she flushes then pales then flushes then pales and sits up like she’s got an anchor strapped to her neck. Lips hesitate on each syllable as she summons enough energy to speak.

  "They kill people. At the Heights. Is that what you’re saying?"

  I set my empty tea glass next to the folder and straighten my posture. "I’m not saying anything of the sort. All I’m saying is that a lot of young scientists who enter the Heights end up on metal slabs in a basement not long after. I’m saying nothing about murder or a conspiracy or some kind of nasty, deadly secret. Only the cold, hard facts. Like a good journalist. Understand, Dr. Marks?" I pick bits of crimson door paint from underneath my nails. The second manicure I’ve ruined since starting this conquest.

  "I understand, and I need to vomit. Can I go do that real quick?"

  "Sure."

  She goes. Doesn’t close the bathroom door. I have to listen to her heave and huff. Hurling up some chunky lunch that sinks into the toilet water. Two minutes pass. The vomiting stops. And the woman returns, her steps uneven, wavering from side to side.

  "All better now. Right as rain." She sits down again, her gaze affixed to the photos. "All the recruits die? Every single one?"

  "Seventy-two percent, at least. That’s what I have photographic evidence of."

  Adele begins to laugh. With the sort of hysterical laughter that overtakes a human being in order to drown out the screams from a mind breaking in half. "Oh, my. How silly. Killing scientists. Then where will they get their ideas? Don’t they come up with ideas there? They say they do. All that tech every year—where does it come from if not from the scientists? God isn’t handing it out, surely."

  "As I said, I intend to answer that question. I’ll let you know when I do, although I imagine you will see it on the news before I manage to phone you. You will be hard to reach where you’re going."

  Adele draws a bloody line down her exposed leg with a nail that should be too blunt to cut anything. Ugh. Lord. I’ll have to trash my nails like that to mimic her.

  She asks, "And where am I going?"

  "The deepest, darkest, warmest hole you can find in Europe." I remove twenty thousand dollars from my purse. A neat stack in a plastic bag. I toss it to Adele, who doesn’t try to catch it. It lands in the woman’s lap with a thump. "That should help. Pack what you want. Leave now. Let reality kick in later, once you’ve got a mundane job in a mundane town, far, far away from the oncoming storm."

  "You’re going to take down the Heights? For real?" She studies her living room with its tasteless décor I’m sure someone convinced Adele was vintage. "And stop the development? All of it? We’ve progressed so far in so little time since the Heights was founded. Howard Sims was a genius. He did such amazing things before the cancer took him. Created the Heights to help everyone. Great man. You think he knew about the deaths?"

  I think he orchestrated them, you timid fool. "I’ll find out."

  "What if you die?" Adele stares at the picture of Martina Gomez.

  "I would count that as a failure. And I don’t fail anymore. Not since high school science."

  Adele nods along. "Do you want my research? You can have it all. I don’t think I’ll need it anymore. I’ve suddenly lost the inclination to be a geneticist. Maybe I’ll take up gardening or fashion design. I like those, too." Her hands close around the money bag.

  "You do that."

  "And you do what you want to do." She points at the picture of her deceased friend. "Can I have that?"

  "Can you keep your mouth shut?"

  Adele bites her lip. "Uh-huh. If that will help you."

  "It will."

  "Good. I won’t say a word."

  "I hope you don’t mind if I stay in your house."

  "Not at all. Take it. It’s yours." Her ga
ze breaks away from the picture and lands on me, analyzing the similarities between us. "Good choice, me. Use me well. Hope I’m helpful." A tongue runs across her front teeth. "Got fingerprint molds in my ID set, if you need them. They’re upstairs in my bedroom, top dresser drawer. They take prints when they come to recruit you, I hear."

  "I’m aware. I was planning to procure a set, but if you have a copy already, then I won’t waste my time. Feel free to start packing. I don’t need anything too taxing from you. Just your name and your face and all your accomplishments."

  Adele reaches down and plucks her favorite picture from the pile. "Not a problem. Take it all. Not a problem. Kill them all."

  "Killing isn’t my job. My job is revealing. It’s the public’s job to kill."

  Adele smiles, bright and bubbly and broken. "Can I give them the gun?"

  5

  Marco

  ( 3 Years Ago )

  The bullet eats a hole in my carpet. I dive underneath the desk. Moan every inch of the way as shattered glass flays my skin. My neck and arms and face and feet are engulfed in fiery pain, epidermis peeling off like plastic stuck to butchered meat.

  "Marco? You still there?" The flex tablet is on the floor, Q’s frowning face displayed. "Quick, aren’t you?"

  Another bullet blows a chunk out of the desk, and I cover my face, splinters shooting by. A high-powered rifle versus a flimsy, fancy designer desk. It’s not going to hold. I have to run. Run or die. Run or die with my brains splattered on the floor of a room in a house I hate. So far away from everything I care about. From the power and the influence. And Clarissa. Dear God, Clarissa.

  I let her go.

  I let her go inside the Heights.

  A third bullet blasts through the wooden desktop and rips a hunk out of my arm. Blood spurts onto the carpet. Pain surges up my neck. I whine so high my voice cracks. I grab my arm to stem the flow, bite my tongue to stop the screams, and launch myself across the room toward the open door.

  Another shot. It misses by an inch and destroys the faux-gold doorknob. I shut my eyes, lunge through the doorway, and hit the ground in a hard roll. Then I’m tearing down the stairs, to the garage, and into a tank of an SUV I’ve never driven before. Reggie bought it for me with the request I use it to go camping.

  I peek into the back seat to double check my emergency supplies are there. Clothes. Cash. Passports. Rations. Guns.

  All accounted for.

  I glance at my favorite sports car parked next to the SUV, and a gut-wrenching wave of nausea nearly dredges up a meager corn flake breakfast. On the verge of hyperventilating, I run through the probability of Q not having a backup plan in case the sniper’s bullets failed to find a lethal home. Not good. A million to one. Q loves contingency plans, if his contracts are anything to go on.

  I dig the spare garage door opener out of the glove compartment and put the vehicle in reverse. Then I begin to back out, slowly, foot by foot. When I’m six feet from the door, I click the opener’s up button and floor it. The top of the SUV clips the partially open door, but I clear it, whip the SUV around in a half circle, and slam my foot on the accelerator. Tires squealing, the vehicle lurches across the driveway.

  Just before I pass the mailbox, my sports car explodes. The concussive blast cracks the back windshield of the SUV. Burning fragments of custom parts rocket out in all directions. Flames catch hold of the garage ceiling and begin to devour it.

  I swerve onto the main road and speed down the asphalt. When I reach the half-mile mark, I glance into the driver’s side mirror, searching the sandy hills behind the now smoking beach house. A figure in tan camouflage gear is slinking toward the tree line, a rifle slung over its shoulder. Before it disappears into the shadows, it stops to stare at my retreating SUV with a face obscured by a featureless helmet.

  Warning: objects in mirror are closer than they appear.

  6

  Quentin

  ( 3 Years Ago )

  Oh. Now I remember why I’m on the floor. Electrocution. That explains the tingling sensation and the irregular pounding in my chest. I must be having a heart attack.

  You would have thought Howard was having twenty at once after Salt escaped from the sniper tail. His fury short-circuited the electricity in the Sims Center, and for ten minutes, he pretended he could turn it back on himself before admitting he’d accidentally erased the code to do so. It concerned me, that lack of control. Howard had never been so careless before.

  My head throbs, and I close my eyes to block out the nauseating double vision. I’m not missing much. I can’t see anything but a jumble of blurry metallic shades.

  I try to focus on what occurred after the power shut down:

  The office is dark, and I’m swearing loudly as I roll my chair across the room to a supply cabinet in the corner. Tearing open a box of small flashlights, I grab one and flick it on. Light reflects off the window where Howard’s face used to be, but with the power cut, he can only display himself on the office’s backup system—my workstation. His face wanders on my three screens, and his whispering voice bleeds out of my speakers.

  "Shit. I’m sorry, Quentin. I don’t know what happened."

  "Just tell me how to fix it. There’s no reason to panic." Well, there is, since a Sims Center with no power means a Sims Center with no defenses. However, the grid isn’t tied to the building’s power, so as long as there aren’t any enemies on this side of the fence, trouble should be fleeting. But now Howard’s fears about the imminent mass droid revolt are creeping into my brain, too.

  I shove the idea out of my head and listen to Howard’s instructions. Once I’ve got them firmly in mind, I head to the secondary stairs at the end of the hall, down more steps than I can count, and into the basement. Blank gray paneling mirrors my light, and I have to squint to see. I find the last door on the right, a plain metal sheet with a battery-powered code lock where the knob would be, and type in the number Howard recited.

  Go inside. Reset the main breaker. Easy as pie.

  Or perhaps as hard as eating that enormous cake Howard snuck into my fridge a couple years ago.

  All four walls of the room are covered with various switches and levers. With my tiny flashlight, I can observe only a three- to four-foot area at a time. And the room is massive. Howard said the main breaker is the largest of the levers, but there are many the size of my head, and not a single one of them is labeled.

  "Fuck me sideways." I shuffle into the musty space and start scanning the equipment for the largest lever. Several of them have stickers bearing a DO NOT TOUCH warning. I avoid those.

  There’s a black box about two feet wide and six feet tall with at least a hundred small switches on it, some of which are in the on position, others in the off position. If I knew anything about electrical systems, that configuration would likely concern me for some reason or another. But I’m ignorant, so I hum a happy pop tune instead of having a panic attack.

  That’s the glory of being a businessman in the tech world.

  Aha! My light shines on a lever a foot across with a three-inch diameter grip. Before I settle on it, I sweep my flashlight beam in a full circle around the room, searching for anything significantly larger than the lever in front of me. Nope.

  Found it. I sit the flashlight on the floor, beam pointed at the ceiling, and grab the lever with both hands. Suck in air. Let it out. Suck in air. Let it out. Suck in air. Let it out.

  Pull!

  The lever flips up.

  And an invisible speeding train slams into my chest and throws me across the room. My head cracks against the floor. My vision whites out.

  An electric hum vibrates through the walls. The fluorescent ceiling lights flicker on. Power is restored to the Sims Center.

  And I’m having a heart attack.

  "Quentin? What’s wrong? Are you...? Oh, God. Hold on!" Howard’s voice spills out of the ceiling speakers. In the maintenance level. Why did we install speakers in the maintenance level?

&
nbsp; Hard footsteps pound into the room. A patrolman hoists me up and takes off, flying into the hallway, up the stairs, and to a rarely used infirmary on the fifth floor. The entire time, Howard’s voice is chasing me.

  "I’m so sorry! Good God, I’m an idiot. Just hold on, Quentin, okay? You’re going to be fine. Fuck, I’m sorry."

  Such little composure. Howard shouldn’t be that way. His emotion routines have limitations. Boundaries. Sure, he can throw harmless tantrums. Sure, he can express self-doubt. Sure, he can pretend he doesn’t know what course of action to take despite his processing power and database access. Sure, Howard can act human.

  But he cannot truly panic like a person. Because panic leads to mistakes, and mistakes can be quite deadly when you’re a powerful AI whose reach in the digital realm extends to every weapon of destruction in the world.

  So he shouldn’t be so excitable. So scared. So rattled.

  "Quentin! Stay with me! Jesus Christ!"

  There’s only one reason he would act like this, one reason he could—an error or a virus in his system.

  "Please, Quentin."

  A virus in Howard’s system. That idea should bother me.

  "Please. Please."

  But I can’t remember why.

  "Please don’t die!"

  In fact, I can’t remember much of anything. I can’t think. Everything is scrambled. Because that goddamn pounding in my chest is getting worse and worse and worse and...

  "Quentin!"

  7

  Georgette

  ( 5 Days Ago )

  "You want me to make you look like her?" Brannigan exaggerates a bout of gagging and sets the photo on his desk, face down. "Hardly a runway model, McClain. You know I’m in business to improve one’s appearance, not worsen it, right?"

  I cross my legs, lean back against the velvety chair cushion, and wave my hand at the wide window to my left. "Times are changing, honey. You have to take what you can get." Outside, eight or ten blocks away, a riot is in full swing. Damaged buildings smolder. Dense smoke plumes into the sky. Chicago is no better than a trash bin these days. "If you’re not willing to take my money, I can go elsewhere."