Upon receiving the news of the murder of his children, he had reacted the only way he knew how: He drank himself into a near coma. When he awoke—and this memory was still crystal clear—he found himself prone atop the steps of the Saint James Cathedral in downtown Seattle at three a.m. on a Tuesday. His face was wet with tears, perspiration, and a spittle of rain. He was shivering from the dampness infecting his clothes. Vomit caked his coat jacket. And he was choking.
He rolled over onto his stomach and crawled toward the handrail. Once there, he grunted as he pulled himself up the concrete railing, pushed himself away from it, and then purposefully and violently leaped back toward the railing. His stomach hit the rail, and he immediately vomited with such ferocity that it broke some branches off of a leafless bush on the ground below the steps. His puking turned into a cough, then the cough turned into sobs, and he stumbled. His knees buckled and slammed into the step. He reached out to break his fall, but now he was falling down the stairs and his momentum, aided by a pudgy stomach, was too much to stop. He flopped like a puppet down the fifteen unforgiving steps and came to rest on the sidewalk below. Blood streamed from his forehead and trickled into the corner of his mouth, and he could taste its acidic spice.
He opened his eyes.
Far above him, above the church, an angel hovered. She wore a simple black cloak, and a glow emanated from within her body. Her hands were clasped and she peered down empathetically. She understood the pain he now felt; the pain of a child being taken from its father. Not just taken; murdered. And the angel wept for him, and as she did, an ivory cross swung from her neck . . . back and forth, back and forth.
The next thing Edward remembered, he was lying in a hospital bed, machines making whirring sounds around him. His head pounded and he was terribly thirsty. His hand was fidgeting on its own, his thumb rubbing incessantly—back and forth, back and forth—across an item that he clutched as though it were a security blanket. He glanced down upon the same ivory cross he had seen earlier in his vision. A simple cross, in the middle of which lay the baby Jesus’ face, with wings behind him. Edward’s thumb twitched across the baby’s face—back and forth, back and forth, back and forth . . .
So began a transformation.
Edward began reading Christian literature as if it were a drug. The drugs he had relied upon previously (alcohol, methamphetamines, Ecstasy) were immediately replaced, and he suffered only minor withdrawal symptoms. He focused his studies on the hot-button topics of the day: abortion, gay rights, civil liberties, the decay of Christianity, the prophecies of the end of times. He studied the Bible with fervor. One simple truth was clearly and consistently exposed: the pretribulation rapture, as depicted by John, was indeed upon the world at large.
A weight had been placed upon Edward’s shoulders, so heavy that some days he feared its consequences, but he persisted as a soldier of God should, for a great duty had been bestowed upon him: He had to deliver God’s message. He had to spread the word of God and save the souls of humanity before the tribulations. This message had been delivered direct from heaven in his vision, and he would not spare an ounce of energy in his quest to deliver the message.
Edward quit his job as a pop-culture columnist—he had been moderately successful, garnering a small but fervent social following—and began his own media outlet: The ELC Report. He poured every bit of his meager funds into the effort. He wrote perpetually and passionately. He did not hold back controversial opinions—in fact, he focused on topics he knew were popularly divisive; he would deal with the gray areas later. He began by highlighting the moral depravity of the time, stressing that the country was heading in the wrong direction. What dull knife was this that slowly cut through our once proud moral fiber? How could we allow people to believe the taking an unborn child was not murder? These were truths, not opinions.
Followers came in droves, almost overnight. His writings reached a million followers in a matter of months, and were soon being passed around religious corpNets as gospel among the devout. He was verbalizing in a simplified and logical manner the complex thoughts that were rattling around the minds of his flock. At the behest of his followers he began a live Internet holoVid. Guests clamored to be on the show.
Ten million followers after one year. Elections arrived and a fractured religious right wing came scrounging for help. Edward remained ruthlessly steadfast in his stringent beliefs. He single-handedly ousted six moderate senators and replaced them with candidates cut from his own mold, vetted thoroughly by himself.
A wave of renewed devout religious conviction began to sweep across the nation. And as his followers grew, so did his curriculum. He began to discuss less popularly accepted beliefs: the nearness of a one-world order, the coming antichrist (who Edward estimated had already been born), the depravity of America, and the purposeful and deliberate demolition of faith. All the while, Edward rubbed his pocketed ivory cross hanging from his neck with the same torrid vigor as that of his message.
Trends tend to fade after some time, and Edward’s meteoric ascension was no exception. He had captured the pent-up angst of a segment of the population who had felt that time had passed them by. Unfortunately for them, it had. Elections came and went, and Edward’s influence waned as his listeners aged and inevitably died off. The progression of moral depravity mirrored a herd of buffalo stampeding toward a cliff, and eventually he knew that standing in front of the herd and shouting would be fruitless. He had to try a different tactic; he couldn’t just let the cattle blindly race toward their death. They deserved to know what lay ahead.
Deciding the problem needed tackling from a different angle, Edward Lee Coglin made a sharp right. He extricated himself from the remnants of his media spotlight entirely—so much so that rumors ran rampant about his death. In reality, Edward was reinventing himself, starting with seminary. After several years of study and tutorship, Edward Lee Coglin was ordained in a small ceremony attended, at a meager church, by six elder Protestant church leaders and several high-profile politicians.
Following his ordination, Edward instantiated a plan that had been blooming in his mind throughout his time of study. He pooled his still-sizable resources, and with the help of several large, anonymous investors, the reverend started a small company called NanoRegenSoft. The company would focus on the hottest business segment of the time: gene therapy.
He needed the herd to rely on him; only then could he adequately get their attention.
The sun had set. He looked out his office window upon his defiled flock and considered pouring himself a stiff drink.
Chapter Nine
The antiquated high-speed magRail from San Diego to Olympia had taken just over twelve hours and the time had passed rather uneventfully. The first-class cabin was nondescript, containing a plain tan couch that doubled as a bed. Dylan had spent the first several hours browsing various corpNets on a public-access media console on the train, while trying to ignore the voice in the back of his head that was beginning to second-guess his impetuous decision to head toward Washington.
But the man had so many details of his other life, his deathTrip . . .
After kicking back a few gin and tonics while watching the Dodgers knock off the Hanshin Tigers in eleven innings, Dylan drifted into a fitful sleep. He awoke eight hours later, just before the magRail arrived in Olympia. Fearing a similar experience in Olympia as that in San Diego, Dylan didn’t bother to shave, and walked off the magRail in the T-shirt he had slept in. He draped his coat over his shoulder and sauntered as casually as he could. The place was filthy. Thousands of people milled around the facility, but Dylan’s now-scruffy look was helping him blend in. That, and he made sure to walk with as much purpose as possible.
After some aggressive meandering, Dylan found a transport rental agency. A quick chat with a holoReceptionist, and a recently returned 2028 model Porsche Boxster retrofitted for autoTrans capability was offered. Dylan smiled a toothy grin, scanned his palm, and headed outside where the
car was already waiting for him.
A light misting of rain pattered the silver sports car, and Dylan ducked inside as fast as he could. The Boxster was cramped; he could barely adjust his pants, forget standing up. It had been nearly a decade since Dylan had last driven an automobile, and that had been a larger hauling vehicle. The driver’s seat was well worn, even though it had clearly been replaced several times. The steering wheel appeared original; the leather was so smooth he could see his reflection in it. He had kept his automobile license active, figuring he’d find time to drive sooner or later. Later had, at last, arrived.
After a few arguments with the Boxster’s computer on the proper timing that the manual transmission required for going from first to second, Dylan settled into a nice rhythm right at the point where he reached the on-ramp to the autoTrans. The computer immediately engaged control, and Dylan’s romp was over for now.
“Hot damn!” he cried out above a squealing engine.
Dylan blinked as the large walls on either side of the autoTrans blocked out the tattered public buildings whose facades only served to hide the scores of lower-class civilians living in shanties in and around the crumbled buildings, people who seemed to have nothing to do but hang out and wait for something to happen.
Thirty-one minutes later the car exited the autoTrans and ceded control back to Dylan. He had transmitted his destination to the car’s computer, and it proceeded to bark out directions in between complaining of proper shifting procedures for early—millennium-era automobiles. In anticipation of future excursions, Dylan vowed to do some research on possible ways to silence the computer.
After another adrenaline-fueled five minutes, he reached the casino. It was an awesome sight; not so much due to its size—though it was large—but because of the structure’s image capabilities. The entire building was dynamic: the walls, the windows, the stanchions, the everything—one giant holoVid cube. Dylan had read about the building while on the autoTrans. It had been built just three years back and had drawn substantial attention in the Pacific Northwest, and the larger architectural tech crowd in general; at the time, it had been the fifth-largest holoVid screen in the world (the larger projects all residing in Asia).
An older digital clock on the Boxster’s dash read 5:33. Dylan smiled and drove past the casino. He had the Boxster’s computer direct him toward a road that had the least amount of stops and the most possible turns, then ignored the computer’s warning about proper shifting technique.
Around 7:20 p.m., after clouds obscured the sunset, Dylan pulled into the transport storage station for the Oyehut Indian Casino. The casino had just started their massive nightly display of holographic fireworks, each explosion morphing into some type of advertisement. Dylan loved it; he loved the moxie of the spectacle. One enormous, dynamic advertisement in the middle of a barren and drizzly sand dune. It was the finest exhibit of surrealist capitalism that Dylan had ever witnessed, and he knew the building’s insides would turn out to be as impressive as its skin.
After parking in a spot that he surmised would bait people to take notice of his ride, he walked into a tunnel heading toward the casino. The tunnel was lined with strips of material hanging down from the ceiling. Each strip was showing a video of some kind, flashing media at a fevered pitch. At one point the strips began waving back and forth, as they simultaneously began showing video of a sea of seaweed, as if he were wading underwater. Seconds later, each strip of hanging video erupted into a different advertisement of some kind. It was a dizzying display of media—and again, Dylan loved it. Media was the heart of sales and Dylan was a salesman at heart.
The tunnel opened abruptly into an expansive room in the center of the cubed structure. Strips of diaphanous, media-enabled material hung off the ceiling draping, just above the heads of the patrons, waving in the air. Slot machines buzzed incessantly. Holographic blocks above each machine danced convulsively, then spun on their corners like tops, seizing until they all suddenly came to rest with various lines of success or failure shooting through each block. Bells, whistles, and various cacophony would accompany the holographic show. Odors would spurt out of the machine to indicate particularly good or bad results. Some lucky people used extra spins to push the holograms around, desperately trying to coerce a different conclusion.
Dylan had become momentarily transfixed to the point of forgetting the reason he had come here in the first place, though he was starting to affirm his decision. He was also itching to play a hand (or many) of poker. With the intent to get a drink and loosen up before gambling, rather than meet some mystery man, he headed to one of the four bars located in each corner of the cubed casino.
The bar was sparse in decoration and patronage, though entirely covered with media—even the tops of the stool cushions displayed an ever-changing advertisement for a particular beer. Dylan sat down on a stool the moment the cushion had displayed a girl’s face smiling back at him. This disturbed him, but he let it pass and motioned to one of the several bartenders who were on tap tonight.
Before he could get out the words, someone else did it for him. “Two gin and tonics—make them doubles." A man’s large face turned from the bartender toward Dylan and asked, “That’s your drink, right?”
Dylan smiled and said, “One of many. If you’re buying, I’ll let you guess the others later.”
The man stuck out an arm that appeared to be on fire. A bright conflagration danced on his skin. He had a dynamic tattoo of several flames that danced differently, depending on the direction his arm was pointing; the flames always danced upward, becoming more haphazard the faster his arm moved. Dylan had seen some examples of dynamic body art. It was popular with the lower class and the technorati—aniToos, they called them—but he hadn’t seen anything this detailed up close until now.
“Simeon,” the man said flatly, offering his hand.
“Dylan, but I guess you already knew that.” He shook the man’s hand firmly and looked at the flames with an approving grin. He then realized the man was muscular, rather than overweight. Simeon was only slightly taller than Dylan, but he appeared taller still owing to his massive frame. His shoulders were as broad as his belly was wide. His muscles flowed naturally, smoothly; they did not appear artificially enhanced.
As Simeon stared back at him, Dylan was quick to notice flames dancing around his black pupils, and he was immediately certain that Simeon’s ocular implants were the product of a competitor’s virt technology, or illegal darkTech. Probably the latter—invasive, to say the least, Dylan thought. The man had long, reddish-blond hair tied back in a ponytail, allowing him to show off shiny gold earrings. Dylan recognized the ponytail—this was the man who had bumped into him in the EGC lobby.
Simeon sat down to Dylan’s right. He didn’t speak until the drinks came, which was fine with Dylan. When the drinks did come, both customers took large swigs, then Simeon twirled in his chair toward Dylan and laughed, a deep, bass-filled chuckle. Dylan turned to him with a questioning look.
“I tell you to take public transit, stay underground, pay direct for a rental—” more laughter “—and you go and rent the most obnoxious car you possibly can! Damn, Dylan!” Dylan took to Simeon’s hearty laugh immediately.
“What’s with the Cold War crap? You’re lucky I’m even here, Mr. Simeon,” Dylan replied.
“Just Simeon, and I wouldn’t call either of us particularly lucky.”
“Okay, Just Simeon, get to the point so I can go play some 50K Limit Hold’em.”
“All right then—“ Simeon started, but was quickly cut off by Dylan.
“And, let me be clear: the point—which happens to be the only reason I came here, and the only reason I’m talking to you right now rather than playing poker—the point is, what do you know about my uncle, and how do you know about Sabrina?”
“I think I’m going to like you, Boxster.” Simeon said, beaming, as the bartender returned with two watered-down gin and tonics. He took a swig, asked the bartender f
or two shots of synthetic tequila, and then continued. “Okay, tell me this: When was the last time you went to a public park?”
“What do you mean ‘When is the last time I went to a public park?’—I was in Central Park just last week on business.”
“Let me reiterate.” The tinge of an East Coast accent seemed to be creeping in. “I said . . . when is the last time you were in a public park?”
Dylan shrugged. “Okay, I give up. What the hell are you talking about?”
“Central Park is leased by a company responsible for sanitation and security. The lessee is PubSecCorp, and the lessor is, of course, New York City. Guess how long the lease is for?” Simeon motioned for an answer with his glass, the ice clinking as he did so.
Dylan shrugged. He was becoming quickly frustrated by the lack of a point.
“A hundred years, Boxster." A rumbling guttural chuckle issued forth from Simeon’s broad chest. “One hundred years. A virtual unknown corp—PubSecCorp—owns Central Park for all intents and purposes.”
Dylan’s business curiosity overtook him briefly and he asked, “Why a lease? Shouldn’t the government be paying PubSecCorp for the sanitation service? What’s that about?”
Simeon chuckled again. This time it almost sounded like a growl. “Heh, there’s the rub. It’s a lease giving PubSecCorp all rights to the space. But the thing is, the lease is free." As he spoke, Simeon raised his hands and gestured air quotes around free. “The security and sanitation is merely a cover for the actual business: marketing. Central Park advertising is some of the most lucrative around. Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but ads are everywhere in that place. The park benches have all been replaced with dynamic-vid materials. The structures: all dynamic-vid signage. If you access the Net in there, you will have to go through a corp proxy; there’s targeted corpNet ads from that point on. There are usually holo displays in the sky at night. It’s subtle—elegant, even—but make no mistake, it’s ubiquitous. And it’s not just parks. PubSecCorp is buying or leasing public land across multiple nations. At the same time, they’re building enormous housing facilities. Structures so large a decent city could survive in them. In the US alone, PubSecCorp—through subsidiaries, or partnerships, or other machinations—leases or outright owns over 70 percent of public space. When was the last time you went to a beach?” he asked rhetorically.
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