Shadow Life

by Jason Mather

  She kept moving. Pat stepped over and put a hand on her shoulder, restraining her. “What is it?” Pat asked.

  “Just keep her over there, please, everyone just stay there. I’ll be right back.”

  He entered, pulled the door closed. With the room beyond shut off it was hard not to believe he was back in Brigham’s palace.

  “You bitch.”

  “Please.” Her voice was exactly the same, face, hair, this one’s eyes were even the right color. Construct 2.0. “Please, I’m so scared. Help me.”

  There was a knock from the outside.

  “Hans?” Grit’s voice.

  “Don’t come in!”

  He grabbed the cot, threw it in front of the door. A leg came detached, lay on the floor with its metal welding still wrapped around the top. Hans picked it up.

  “Please,” the Lori thing said again, “please, Hans. I am beaten, I have nothing left. No power, no knowledge, just this body.” She shivered harder, began to cry.

  His will faltered. She was right. What harm was she now, without the complex?

  “Take me with you? Save me, Hans.”

  His anger returned. She had miscalculated. She was playing him again.

  “No.”

  “Please, Hans, don’t leave me here.”

  “I won’t. You’re too dangerous.”

  Her eyes widened, took in his stance, the metal pole in his hand. Hans practically shook with rage.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You’ve tried to kill me, to kill my friends. You left me in two pieces. And you think I’ll just forgive and believe you now, just because you take another familiar face.”

  There was genuine fear in her eyes. Hans could see it. He steeled himself.

  “You… you won’t do it. Not to this body. Not to sweet Lori.”

  “After everything, you’re just a child, aren’t you? The cruelty of children and all that.”

  She smiled, thinking she was winning, the fear draining, if the fear had ever truly been real.

  “Yes, just a child, innocent.”

  His sight filled with the sphere’s knowledge, making sure this was it, that there wasn’t another connection. The body was completely organic, it contained no sphere. She had no escape.

  “Please…”

  It was all she had left. No more arguments, no more tricks, just one last pathetic wheeze.

  “It’s not true, you know,” Hans said, “that bit about children being the most cruel. Cruelty takes years to learn. Years of loss, of bitterness, of darkening. Cruelty requires complete understanding of what you are doing. No child can truly be cruel. It takes an adult.”

  He raised the bar. She cowered, whimpered. How could he do it? Stand above her childlike form and contemplate murder. How could she have been so wrong about his character? Her eyes sent a final plea.

  “I’m terrified of what you could do if you gain a true capacity for it. As of now, I’m winning for one reason. I’m meaner than you.”

  The first blow was the hardest, the shock coming through the leg, the bar bending slightly, the wet crack reverberating through the concrete cell. She grunted with the impact, cried out. He hit her again, blinding himself. By the third swing she made no more noise.

  Hans made it an even twenty before he stopped. He had to be sure. Then he fell to his knees, retched. There was nothing left in his stomach, and the heaves pressed against his eyes. They went on interminably.

  — «» —

  Hans moved the bed, opened the door. The heaves had passed. Pat still held Lori. Grit moved to him, looking in over his shoulder. Her eyes narrowed, took in the bloody mass on the floor, the red splatters on his shirt and face. She looked in his eyes, concern and fear easily read.

  “Are you…”

  Hans stopped her with a hand on her shoulder, and shook his head solemnly. He shut the door behind him. Grit put her arms around him. Hans could count on one hand the number of times he’d cried in his life, a fact he was not particularly proud of. He didn’t know where he’d lost the art. But they came now. Grit held him. He welcomed it, falling completely against her. More arms took him from behind, the smell of his mother, kissing the back of his head. Another pair of arms around his waist. He removed a hand from Grit’s waist, placed it around Lori’s shoulders.

  They stood until he stopped. Never had he welcomed contact so much.

  Gino had been standing back awkwardly, his face unmoving as always. When Hans finally pushed Grit back, Gino stepped forward, put a strong hand on Hans’ shoulder,

  “You feel better?”

  “Yeah, I think we need to end this Hallmark moment and get the fuck out of here.”

  Everyone laughed. Grit took Gino’s hand from Hans’ shoulder, leaned and gave Hans a peck on the cheek.

  “You guys are pathetic,” Hans said, “you should forget about the rules for once and just have a go. Everyone already knows you’re going to.”

  Grit and Pat laughed, the humor tinged with playful teasing.

  “You are such an idiot sometimes, Hans. Gino and I have been ‘having a go’ for years.”

  Hans took that in, feeling every bit the idiot. Rather than respond he turned and walked to Onyx, still on the table. She was sleeping peacefully. Still breathing, still not awake. Hans put a hand on her forehead, willing her to wake up. Nothing.

  “We should get out of here; the light is fading.” Grit indicated the walls. She was right. Whatever residual power that had kept the lights on was dimming quickly. He asked the sphere for light. It lit up, brightening the corner where it had rolled in the chaos. Soon it would be the only light.

  Without asking, Grit muscled Onyx off the table and threw her over her shoulder. Hans started to protest, then realized Grit was more capable of carrying her. Now was not the time for macho idiocy. He retrieved the sphere and headed toward the opening in the far wall, indicating everyone should follow.

  “Lori?” he turned, looking for her. She was kneeling beside James’ shell, taking something from his hand.

  “What’cha got there, darlin?” he asked.

  She showed him another sphere, this one much smaller. Hans guessed it might be one of the units that controlled the constructs. Seeing it made him nervous, but the way it had laid in James open palm made Hans think James may have wanted them to have it. He held out his hand and Lori placed the sphere in it. Hans put it in his pocket.

  “Come on, princess, we need to go.”

  — «» —

  The trip to the surface was slow. Hans tried to use the sphere at first, but down here in the dark amidst the remains of James true self it gave him confusing and contradictory directions. They tried to head mostly uphill, relying on Pat’s superior sense of direction. Gino and Grit took turns carrying Onyx. They stopped frequently to rest. Grit a produced a small amount of dried meat, Gino some water. They rationed it carefully. The trip was contained in the bubble of light that surrounded them from the sphere. Hans feared it would fade, even though Onyx had assured him it would outlast him.

  Hours passed. He began to lose hope. They could wander in these caverns forever, miles and miles of black nothing. They’d starve to death. He bolstered his failing drive by reminding himself that Lori needed him to stay strong. He gave her a smile, ruffled her hair. She looked exhausted, but not beaten. He could only pretend likewise.

  The door appeared, a sudden change in the endless monotony. He grasped the knob, expecting it to be locked. It opened easily, letting the party out onto the walkway, the immense cavern once again ascending into infinity. The sphere showed no activity. Hans felt a sudden pang of loss. He missed James, wished there’d been another way. A being with so much power and so much compassion; imagine what he could have accomplished. He wasn’t the first man to be destroyed by love.

  The trip from the cavern to the entrance was short, everyone picking up the pace in anticipation of leaving the oppressive darkness behind them. The huge doors had been reduced to so much rubble,
and the world outside stood in darkness, though the night was considerably warmer and brighter than what was behind them.

  He steeled himself for the destruction of the transport, but it waited where they had left it, doors still open from their hasty escape. The scene surrounding it was a mass of dead pods of both sizes. They picked their way around the mess, unable to refrain from flinching at any perceived movement.

  Grit secreted Onyx in one of the sleeping births and made her way to the front. Gino followed. So did Hans, handing Lori, nearly asleep on her feet, to his mother. Grit stopped him.

  “No, Hans, you go lay down.”

  He couldn’t argue. He was completely drained. He took an empty berth, pulled the thin curtain across the entrance, lay back, and shut his eyes. The vehicle rumbled to life underneath him. Warm comforting, safe. He slept.

  — «» —

  Hans woke suddenly, a gasp on his lips. The darkness was unfamiliar and he was trapped, trapped by her, slowly going insane. He tried to sit up, cracked his head on the ceiling, bringing reality back. In the vehicle, going home. Onyx with us, Lori safe. But his heart rate would not slow.

  Pulling back the curtain, he listened, hearing faint sounds of Grit and Gino from the driver’s cabin. A moment of laughter. His mother snored from a nearby berth.

  Where was Lori?

  Hans put his feet down on the cold metal, irrational panic driving him. He pulled the curtain from his mother’s berth. She snored on, Lori not with her. He moved the other way, opening Onyx’s curtain.

  Lori lay curled in a fetal position between Onyx and the metal wall. She’d lifted one of the woman’s arms and placed it across her shoulders. Or maybe Onyx had done that herself. Hans couldn’t help it. He shook her once.

  “Illiyana?”

  No response, just measured breathing.

  Please wake up, Illiyana.

  Hans climbed in next to her, offering an apology for one more unasked indignity. He stretched out next to her on his side, extending an arm, placing it on Lori’s head on her other side. It was a tight fit. No room for movement. Probably he’d fall out. He placed his head on her chest, listened to her heart, her breath. Lori stirred, grabbed his hand, and went back to sleep.

  He fell asleep thinking there was no way he could sleep like this. There were no nightmares.

  — «» —

  He put her up in his cabin, laying her on the bed and sleeping on the couch, Lori crowding against him. He woke late the next day, Lori gone. He looked around for her, called groggily. He could hear her moving around in the bedroom.

  Lori sat cross-legged next to Onyx on the bed. She was praying. She looked up when he came in and took the chair next to the bed.

  “Is she ok?” Lori asked.

  Hans shook his head.

  “But she’s not dead.”

  “I don’t know. Her mind may be gone.”

  “You don’t know that.” Petulant stubbornness, already she was taking after him.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “You can get it back.”

  “I can’t, I don’t have any way to do that.”

  “I was trying, but it won’t work.”

  “Trying how?”

  “With this,” Lori held up a sphere. Hans was surprised to see it. It was smaller than his, one of the construct’s.

  “Lori, where did you get that?”

  “I got it from your room. I’m sorry snooping. I thought I could help her, the way you did, by going in her head.”

  “Lori, those aren’t the same, they’re slaves, you have to have the…”

  An improbable piece of hope.

  “You have to have what?”

  The sphere was in his pocket, he could feel its cold mass. He was planning on throwing it in a river or something.

  “A control…”

  But his thoughts were already somewhere else. Gently he relieved Lori of the sphere. According to James and Onyx they could be programmed for anything. Why not access to another person? He didn’t know how, but maybe the sphere did.

  It took nearly a week to obtain all the medical equipment to keep her alive; IVs and scanning equipment, one of those bed with the creepy sheets, though Lori had already begun to clean and take care of those necessities, uncomplaining in her duties, happy to help. He paid for it all by finding and accessing Illiyana’s massive offshore wealth. He would not use it for himself, but she could not begrudge him its use for her own sake. If she ever awoke.

  Grit and his mother both looked at him strangely when he told them his plan, their eyes betraying their cynicism. He was unperturbed. He’d made a promise to find her. He’d yet to make good.

  The reprogramming proved simple, a matter of accessing the sphere, its knowledge guiding him, changing the smaller sphere’s purpose. He slaved it to Onyx, placed it on her chest, feeling it accessing her mind.

  It was a slow, frustrating process. He was adrift in a vast ocean. No ship, no directions. The brain monitors showed minimal activity, but at least they showed some. He spent a week simply researching any pertinent information he might need. Info was sparse. No one had yet to even imagine what he was attempting, no one had the tools.

  — «» —

  “We can rebuild a brain,” Doctor Laud had said, “but we cannot rebuild a mind.”

  He spent most of the daylight hours next to her bed, the spheres connecting their minds. From the first time he entered he had a sense of her still in residence, though everything felt confusing, jumbled, like a poorly wired appliance. He took this analogy and ran with it. Looking for misfires, crossed wirings. It was all guessing. Progress eluded him.

  Often Lori sat with him, bringing him food from his mother. Pat was teaching her to cook, to shoot, to hunt. She still slept with him most nights, in the bed he’d dragged in from one of the other cabins, but more and more he’d find her gone when he woke, having crawled into bed next to Onyx, or left to find his mother. He tried not to neglect her in his obsession, but she seemed to understand.

  Grit left after a couple of weeks, promising to visit soon. His mother continued as she always had. She still occasionally made money guiding tourists on local hunting trips, and sold meat and baked goods in town.

  Life returned to normal, sort of.

  Weeks passed, then months. Still Hans refused to give her up. He’d made some little progress, learning as he went. For a short period he’d encountered darker memories and tried to suppress them. This had been disastrous as Illiyana had pulled even farther away. He could not take her pain from her, it was as much a part of her as her strength and courage, maybe more so. He stopped trying to forcibly rewire her brain, instead becoming passive support, occasionally intervening, finding a misfire, gently redirecting.

  But he had no idea if any of this was working.

  He spent his time in her world, her memories, losing himself there. Feeling her pain, understanding her fright. And all the time laying messages for her, searching for the core, the switch, the moment that would bring her back.

  Wake up, Illiyana.

  Doctor Laud visited and pronounced her in perfect physical health, the various muscle and organ growth hormones keeping her fit should she ever wake, though his pessimism was obvious when he looked at her brain reading. He showed disbelief when Hans tried to explain the mechanism of the spheres, and dismissed it as hopeful wishing, nothing more. Hans did not begrudge him, understanding his doubts.

  But he would keep trying.

  At seven months he had a small breakthrough, a moment in her mind where his calling activated something conscious. A small reaction. Hans overreacted, pouncing on the thought. It retreated from him. He did not sleep that night. A few days later, the thought returned, a spark of conscious light. This time Hans let it be, merely sending it welcoming thoughts, encouraging its growth.

  It faded, then returned, seemingly stronger. All these impressions he had, none of which he could be sure were not his own imagination.

  Wake up, Illiya
na.

  More thoughts, little successes, almost as if she were trying to communicate. Bursts of questioning. Unfinished questions. Am I? Was I? Who?

  You’re Onyx, you’re Illiyana, you’re a friend. You’ve been lost. Wake up.

  He was spending nearly twelve hours a day in her mind now, the sensation more real than reality. Neglecting Lori, though she was in good hands with his mom. Pat scolded him, Grit scolded him. No one could say he hadn’t tried, no one could blame him for giving up. She was better. How could he know? He just did. There’s nothing there Hans. It’s time to let go.

  He would not.

  Wake up, Illiyana.

  Thoughts cohering in her mind, the process begun. Sometimes gaining, sometimes retreating. He cajoled, entreated, everything but taking control. Memories gaining strength, questioning becoming clear.

  How did I get here? Am I dead?

  You were injured, you’re recovering. You are alive…

  …wake up Illiyana…

  …please.

  She opened her eyes just three days short of a year since her last words to him.

  Then I die.

  So you live.

  — «» —

  Her sudden consciousness pushed him out, her exertion of will immediate and surprising. He was suddenly back in himself, looking at her. Eyes open … hazel … just as she said.

  He wanted to jump for joy, to scream. He waited. Would she speak? Was she really awake?

  “You found me,” she said.

  “I promised.”

  — «» —

  “Are you in love with her?” Grit asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  They were sitting on his mother’s porch. Onyx had recovered quickly. It had only been a few days since her eyes opened. She stood, leaning on a makeshift cane, watching Lori try to take a few dance steps under her instruction. There was nothing wrong with her body, but her brain was taking a bit to relearn the control scheme. Doctor Laud had told them this over the viewscreen. She would be back to one hundred percent quickly, though it wasn’t happening quickly enough for Onyx. More in doubt was her memory; parts of it were simply gone. She was still Onyx, still Illiyana, but she kept what she could and couldn’t remember close to her vest. Hans had not pried.