The Solution

by TA Williams

  Christopher M said, “I don’t have time to give you a class. Open the cap, press the green button. Throw it. The effect lasts three seconds.”

  Class 1 electromagnetic charges were black market material, near priceless, and internationally prohibited unless assigned or approved by the Solution. If he and Alex’s people were going to take out RMS, this was their only ticket, Christopher M assured.

  “These machines are equipped with refractor fields. Electromagnetic weaponry is the only chance to drop the refractors. Other than this, it’s either photon bursts or scratch-and-dent nukes only the Solution has access to. Alex has resources, but not those kinds of resources. Let’s go,” Christopher M said.

  It didn’t take long for the soreness in Randal’s body to be trumped by adrenaline and a racecar-heartbeat. Lightheaded at first, he followed Christopher M out of the room and into the corridor heading toward the lobby. They crouched in the shadows, looking toward the mayhem, where violet and indigo plasma shots bit through flesh and left dripping light-trails in the air. For a second Randal thought the air looked singed; he wondered how his fern was doing without him. It probably withered and died.

  There were more of Alex’s people than Randal previously surveyed. Before he thought maybe ten. Now Randal counted close to twenty men and women. Georgia was among them, all running, ducking and dodging as though they were mice fleeing from cats—and they were, the Black Cats. A few runners were gunned down, disintegrated in violet light and cinder. Georgia found cover with Alex behind the large receptionist desk, which would last no longer than a few moments.

  The intruders wore stealth, Christopher M concluded. He could only see plasmatic haze in the dark. The Black Cats moved fast, like Black Cats move, never firing in the same position twice, making the enemy believe they had more numbers. Always shifting, always killing. They wore spectra-goggles and saw their enemies through cyan battle-grids, suggesting lines of attack. Black Cats were equipped with sonic-sensors, and their combat training was obscenely advanced compared to Alex’s people, who were mainly unarmed.

  From what Randal had seen of Alex’s people, they’re frail techies; the closest to a genuine fighter was maybe Christopher M and Georgia seemed to have some spunk.

  Suddenly Randal’s mettle began melting, draining from his body as if being siphoned by an unseen force. All his insecurities surfaced at once. He wasn’t smart enough, tall enough. He wasn’t handsome, and he was horrible at math. He recalled, how when he was younger a kid named Big Gary used to punch him and throw him to the ground on a daily basis. Randal never fought back. Images of a hell paraded across Randal’s mind—all the torture, hollers, and viscera.

  The RMS were coming.

  As Randal attempted gather his head, to formulate his own strategy, or wait for Christopher M to make a move, an RMS crashed through the lobby entrance, slinging glass and steel and nearly triturating the doorframe and part of the wall. Its particle cannon blazed blue streams and cleaved a man and woman. There were seven of Alex’s people left alive.

  After the RMS marched to the middle of the lobby, it stood in a stationary position, commencing a bio-scan for survivors and casualties, then, it alternated weaponry, oscillating its torso while shooting sporadic plasma pulses into already charred corpses or immobilized humans clinging to life behind rubble.

  A second later, another, larger RMS followed course, halting near the other and popped suppressive chain-gun fire.

  Christopher M wasn’t sure why the RMS hadn’t fired ion-rockets at the reception station and ended the raid—ended it all and obliterated everyone involved. All he knew was that the chances of getting out of this unscathed (or alive) were pretty nil.

  Randal looked at the Class 1 electromagnetic charge and held it tight. “How many more of these charges do you have?”

  “One,” Christopher M said.

  Then Christopher M grimaced but didn’t say anything. Randal watched him grip the electromagnetic charge tightly, click the cap open with his thumb and press the green button. Christopher M tossed the charge within ten feet of both RMS. Following a high-pitched knell the charge detonated and spread a thirty-foot radius of writhing web over both machines, locking their systems. The web had also caught a Black Cat, leaving the soldier in stasis due to all the hardware he was wearing. With a small a sense of victory, Christopher M and Randal watched the Black Cat’s stealth-shadow melt off like octopus ink spreading underwater.

  Now was the moment to make a stand, no matter how inane it may prove to be.

  “Shit,” Randal said. “I can’t believe this.”

  Not even a half-second passed. Randal waited for Christopher M to give orders or take action before the web would wear off. The anticipation and fear almost murdered Randal’s constitution, then Christopher M hollered, “Fire!”

  Randal and Christopher M opened wide, eating holes through the larger machine’s torso. Georgia, standing from behind the reception desk, followed suit. The targeted RMS toppled to the floor in a cloud of smoke.

  But the last second was up, and the larger RMS powered back on, refractor fields included, and let loose pulses dead at Alex and Georgia. Even though most of the reception desk was close to cinder, they tried to take cover behind it.

  There wasn’t much time, and before the Black Cat’s stealth could slide back on, Randal had burned the Black Cat into blistered halves.

  “Toss it,” Christopher M said to Randal. “Toss the other charge. Now.”

  Randal hurled the last charge near the RMS. Detonation. The web spread and the plasma fire tore the machine down. Not as easy as using photonic bursts, nor as globally approved, but it worked.

  All things considered, taking down the machines was accomplished quite minimally, Randal thought.

  Then a Black Cat executed an unexpected tactic. The soldier jabbed a cylindrical stake into the floor, engaged a switch, and a piercing frequency belted.

  Ultrasonic pain slammed and blood began dripping from Randal’s ears and he couldn’t control his thoughts. Vision fuzzed like trying to look through waterfall.

  Suddenly a shadow darted toward Randal coupled with the violet, singeing glow of plasma. Convinced his grizzly end had finally come, Randal was certain he’d been outwitted, which Randal would freely admit couldn’t of have been terribly difficult to do.

  Suddenly there was snag in the gears of time, or reality.

  Everything stopped when a presence of such awesome and terrible force was felt just as much as heard.

  Randal wasn’t harmed. This wasn’t his final windup, after all, but an inception of something larger than himself, into something much larger than himself. It was like time had a glitch, Randal believed, and he was then standing at the threshold of the corridor looking onto a nightmarish unreality. The stench of blood, guts, and plasma boxed and punched at his senses. It took all he had to keep from vomiting.

  Randal’s perspective had totally changed. The damaged RMS were now but green blips on the filters of actuality; the Black Cats were gore-covered skeletons locked in midair like slow-motion wraiths, wearing functional spectra-goggles. And it all happened faster than Randal could keep up with.

  Randal understood at once what he observed was not the whole truth but a fraction of truths crammed together to form an illusory state. But then again, how could he really know what was real or fake anymore, the way his life was going. But it felt real, realer than his name. The main question he wanted an answer to is, once again, why he was here. He got the notion that he’d not hear a straight answer for while to come, if ever. That was life these days.

  Randal briefly contemplated the carnage in front of him. Before he could make any progress a swell of cool air came like a wave and brushed across his face, as if washing the blood and dirt away. But soon the coolness turned into jellyfish-like stings on his skin. He was certain this dreamscape wasn’t manufactured, but only misunderstood.

  The hurt abruptly stopped, and from the darkness in the lobby, Elizabe
th walked toward Randal. She was deathly pale, dark circle under eyes, hospital gown soaked with sweat. At a closer look, her form appeared to be a daunting emulsion of a thousand images; she was a thousand different angles and viewpoints at once; yet Randal conceived her as a singular being, smelling of tulips and rain.

  Randal was overtaken with both dread and awe. He wanted to run, but he stood transfixed, unable to move.

  Her green eyes shown vividly and certain as she said, “Reality has a virus, and I’m it. You’ll have to stop me, or I’ll slay you all.”

  The scenes before Randal skipped a few beats, palpitating, then, sped up to near normality. The dreamscape corroded and ended, letting another indisputable truth filter through at the Vintage Hotel. If havoc had an appetite, these were the leftovers. Corpses, ashes, and air stained with violet light.

  Christopher M said, “You’re lucky! You almost got smoked. I saved your ass there, twinkle-toes. We aced three more Black Cats. Got their gear.”

  Alex Treaty, Georgia and Plum Charlie kneeled beside Randal. All the Black Cats were dead and the RMS shut down. Randal concluded that his aversion to his circumstances just reached a severity of monsoonal proportions.

  “I hate you,” Randal said.

  Christopher M volleyed, “Step in line. Everybody that knows hates it, and if you know, you know—then you will hate.”

  Alex Treaty said, “We’re leaving. Now.”

  ***

  I’m sorry, Elizabeth,” Mr. Spires said lowly. “I’m so sorry.”

  Elizabeth came to as a different person as Dr. Reverence ended the grueling hours of therapy. The monitors flickered blue in the dark.

  “I’m very sorry,” Mr. Spires leaned in front of her, inches away from her chapped lips. She hadn’t seen someone look at her with sympathy in what seemed like ages. His suit was wrinkled, and his hair appeared greasy, his eyes two moony pools in the dark. He put moisturizer on her lips.

  “Hopefully that will help you,” he whispered.

  She said nothing, only gazed vacantly. When she had first met Mr. Spires, she respected and trusted him. There was none of that left, and honestly she couldn’t feel her lips in the first place. Mr. Spires sighed and backed away, sitting behind a holocomputer. He put his head in his hands.

  Stale quietness permeated the room with the exception of humming electricity. In a sober daze, Elizabeth looked at the thick wires plugged into her arms and the network that wrapped around her. It was a selfish yet loving leviathan, she knew, and it was all too real. But it didn’t matter anymore, Elizabeth concluded. Chaos. Death. All the pain, all the hate, she knew them at the atomic level now—and no one knew them better than her.

  She had one body, but her minds were becoming many. She felt like a rioting metropolis resided inside her, as though a centrifugal mechanism had separated her wholeness into numerous elements. So many thoughts clashed like titans making hurricanes in her head, and the experience was so far from pleasant Elizabeth believed there’s a hell. She was a different person, or persons.

  Something inside, maybe a ghost of her self’s past, tried to soothe her, bring her back to the whole, to tie herself back together—but she gladly smothered the little sentiment. Bring me back to the whole of what? Scrawny features of her personality deserved nasty deaths just like her mother. Just like the public and like the Solution. She smiled deeply, enough to make her cheeks wrinkle, then the smile faded to nothing.

  She stared at Mr. Spires. He lifted his head from his hands. He couldn’t read her expression, and none of his programs were able probe her mind and see her thoughts. The hair on the back of his neck stood like little trees and his body was covered with gooseflesh.

  I will shred actuality from the likes of every soul on the planet. Each human is a solipsistic, pompous mammal, and I’ll let them believe there is no self unless there is torment, because anguish and woe will be all that’s factual. That, the public must know.

  I am better than the Internet. I will know more than Everything.

  While Elizabeth had realized a part of herself left her body a few moments ago to warn Randal, such lèse majesté must not occur again; omnipotence was initiating.

  As fast and as intense as they’d come, Elizabeth’s clashing thoughts receded to the pits of her brain and she was left in sobering silence once more, not thrilled by the fact that, not only had life change many times, it changed quick and uncaringly.

  Geared up to begin a second sequence of tests and draining processes, Dr. Temple entered Room 432, smirking at Elizabeth with a gleam in his blue eyes.

  Dr. Temple said to Mr. Spires, “Molecular surveillance capabilities exponentially increased and progress is of a colossal scope. You should be pleased.”

  Mr. Spires blinked his eyes.

  “Oh, what a world we live in, Elizabeth,” Dr. Temple told her, “I said that you are a doorway, and you really are. You are monumental.”

  Chapter Seven

  Cosmic Tears

  “We have to think about individualization and what course the public will take if their wills indeed become theirs again,” Alex Treaty said.

  Hours ago they had blocked the All’s signal and driven to an obscure, cozy and old brownstone uptown before an entire brigade of Solution Black Cats and RMS demolished the Vintage Hotel, but none of it made Randal feel any better.

  Christopher M stood guard by the front door, his energy rifle armed, one duffle bag full of Black Cat gear beside him on the scuffed hardwood floor, and a pair of newly acquired spectra-goggles fastened on his head. Holocomputer running, a pensive Plum Charlie sat at the kitchen table beside Alex Treaty. Georgia spread orange marmalade over an English muffin and ate it slowly, savoring the flavor. The taste of sweetness seemed to temporarily alleviate, to have a figurative curtain fall over and block the horrific scenes from hours ago from her head. Eating away her sorrows was something that simply had to be done, but so was exercise, Randal noticed, and it was a biological anomaly that she appeared in as good of shape and form as she was. She ate like a feline, even licked off a splotch of the orange marmalade from her hand, very demurely.

  Randal stood by the kitchen counters, turning his attention to the old lady named Ms. Bunny that had allowed Alex Treaty and all his people to stay. Ms. Bunny had made hot tea and offered any food in her cabinets and pantry. She was petit, adorned bright flowery colors on her dress, and she cursed more than Randal expected. He liked Ms. Bunny, and her cherry-red lipstick, and wondered why she’d be involved with a group like Alex Treaty’s.

  Eating nothing, Randal shook his head and frowned, then slid his back against the wall down to the gray tile, trying to listen to Alex Treaty talk. But Randal kept thinking of Elizabeth’s glowing green eyes and how all of existence seemed to morph into something uncanny when she arrived at the Vintage Hotel. And the echoing, shrill screams, it was as if the cosmos lifted its veil.

  “The Solution’s Dream,” Alex said, “You become the Dream when it is substantially wired into everyday existence, and if you cannot own your days—which in this autocracy not a soul truly does—you must think about from whose mind your life is dreamt and to what aspirations this mind holds your very existence.”

  Randal saw Ms. Bunny digging in her purse for something, then saw her pull out a vanilla clove and light it, offering one to Georgia. Georgia accepted. The aroma was nice, Randal conceded.

  Alex continued, “We must ask ourselves who we are helping to sustain the collective rule, and why we are but a mere individual within this rule—not individuals. The Solution lives though us, experiences life through us. We can longer allow the vicarious mind to dream us into what it wants us to be. The more freedom you think they give you, the more control they have over you. The idea of ‘freedom’ is a subterfuge.”

  Plum Charlie sneezed and a chin roll juggled, then he hit a key on the holocomputer, the purplish glow of it folding in on itself until there was nothing but air. Randal got the notion Alex Treaty broadcasted his speech ov
er the Net—not that anyone out there would give a damn (their efforts were near comical), Randal thought, and he believed there were more important matters needing attention than a speech, in all the nation for all the public.

  Silence fell over the room. Georgia puffed on her clove and winked at Randal. Randal harrumphed. He stood up and walked toward Alex, slicing through the man’s apparent contemplation. “Sounded like yodeling to me,” he said.

  “Well, you’re an ‘effin idiot,” Christopher M returned. “No one’s in the mood for this.”

  Something triggered inside Randal, something he would have called a Dysfunction only awhile ago but now might have been a new way of life.

  Randal narrowed his eyes, saying, “Really? So you think we have time for existentialistic bull here? It’s a waste. See, I don’t think we do have time. As screwed up as everything is, there’s still reality. What if the Solution traces you again? Then what, smart guy? They seem to move pretty fast.”

  More hushing in the room and Alex studied Randal with mild amusement, then responded with poise, “It’s not terribly Zen, is it? I understand your concern, man. Now, do you know why you’re still here? Why you’re still alive or your brain hasn’t been fried.”

  “Yeah, because you people ‘saved me’ or whatever you want to call it.”

  Georgia shook her head, disgusted, and exhaled a cloud of smoke. She spit, “You ungrateful little twerp. Just stop. I’m trying to enjoy some decency.”

  “Sure. Whatever,” Randal said. “I was trying to enjoy my damn life.”

  Christopher M rolled his eyes. He’d been through too much, lost his wife and daughter and fought his way out of a version of hell in the Midwest to get here. He had no room for whining.

  Alex raised his hand as if to calm Christopher M, then said to Randal, “Worse things would’ve happened to you. Think about it, Mr. Markins. You would’ve dreamt of her regardless, you know, and the Solution would have either killed you or drained your life from you. Do you prefer death, man? Do you? Think you’re starting to figure all this out? You’re not. Have you taken a moment to—“