I wanted to walk down the alley and look for blood or some sign that it'd been a crime scene. Instead I stopped and stood there looking into the alley for a full minute, which would've been an embarrassing mistake in most cases.
Keti had made it all disappear.
I turned around and watched the world carry on the same as it had a week before. I felt invincible.
When I got home, I wanted to commemorate the occasion in a meaningful way. The words it has begun were running through my head in a rush, thoughts were overlapping each other and almost driving me crazy. Hard to describe in words. Imagine that you're looking straight down into a lake, and every drop of water running past is a word. It's my curse, and I know that Keti chose me because it takes someone extraordinary to handle even the tiny amount of her enlightenment that's loose inside my head.
One day, when this is all over and I've finished my task, Keti will appear to me and tell me that my energy is truly perfect. The Empress is just a public figure for the Citizens to adore. She probably isn't even any different than them.
Keti's real "intermediary" (that's what they call the Empress, I don't know what it means for sure) between herself and this world is me. I feel guilty that I'm too smart for my own good.
I already figured out that the Empress will be my final kill.
I don't know what'll lead up to it, but there's no way my story can end except with me killing the Empress and taking my rightful place.
Chapter Nine
On one of the screens, a woman was sprawled face down in a public bathroom. The face of the man dragging her into a stall was partly obscured from view by his sweatshirt's hood.
Lorenz scrolled the footage forward to the point when the body was found by an employee.
The employee, a short black man, roughly crammed the woman's body into an industrial trash bag. He then fitted another trash bag over the first one before dragging the body off screen.
Another screen showed the same killer, in the same hooded sweatshirt, crawling through an open second-floor window he'd climbed to. Minutes later he was seen exiting through the front door of the townhouse.
On a screen far to the right of that one, Lorenz's guest idly watched a skinny woman and an obese one hold each other by the hair as they fought between two parked cars. The larger one threw the other to the ground and sat on her chest.
She could be seen to say something to the girl before pulling a black object out of a pocket and thrusting it into the girl's chest.
The only sound in the room was the voice of the Empress, coming from the center screen in Lorenz's private office. This Assembly, the first of three, was said to be ordered by Keti herself.
The Empress had told the crowd early on to stop performing the ritual chants that were common in her temples. He was still intrigued by it.
Lorenz's guest was a wiry man in his sixties who carried a cane that he didn't seem to need. He continued watching the footage as Lorenz waited for him to resume their conversation.
Onscreen, the woman's thin body lay unmoving as a silhouetted figure knelt over her. A bystander, he decided. Someone who didn't want to have to deal with a murder victim. He didn't bother to watch whether they stayed.
“How do I know he's really yours?” the man asked. “As far as I know, he's just a random psycho.” Before Lorenz could answer, the man continued. “We have quite a few of those, you know, out here.”
It was clearly sarcastic; of course Lorenz had an idea how many deaths didn't make it into any outland news, but the man said it without a hint of insincerity.
Lorenz stood up. “I've never let anyone in this room before. It contains too much technology that outlanders would banish me for. I wouldn't have taken this risk just to mislead you.”
“You used a lot of big words to avoid explaining this earlier, but I don't understand what you've involved me in.”
“Allow me to try again. With simpler words.” He cringed slightly, unsure if his guest would take it as an insult. “We set up drones over the center of town; these drones scanned for certain abnormal brain patterns.
“We tracked five of the best candidates and studied them. This one,” he said with a flourish toward a distant screen, “lost his family during what he refers to as The Cleansing, as I understand.”
“I'm not convinced that this was a good use of time and resources,” his guest interjected. “You, it would appear, disagree.”
Lorenz paused to choose his next words carefully. “Let me be brief.” He tapped a finger on the surface of his desk.
“When Keti appeared, some of the top scientists fled to the outlands with us. The top living scientists, that is to say. They've remained in contact with their colleagues in the City.”
The man interrupted abruptly. “You just said you would be brief.”
Lorenz nodded. “They're concerned that Keti is potentially an out-of-control AI. A handful of governments had the money and ambition; one in particular was reckless...”
His guest's mouth moved wordlessly, searching for the right question.
“You mean....no. An AI couldn't conceivably do this.”
“They believe it could have begun evolving so fast that it exceeded its supposed potential before anyone had time to control it.”
“She wiped out most of the planet,” Lorenz's guest said emphatically. “If an AI could do that, hackers would have done it decades ago.”
“That's assuming that humans are capable of more than artificial intelligences, which I'll remind you has already been disproven. What we, that is they, suspect is that Keti is an AI which evolved beyond our comprehension.”
“If an AI had this potential, it would still need a logical reason. Why leave any of us alive if it wasn't going to use them for something? And what could this possibly have to do with your killer?”
“Keti has shown her power, but not necessarily proven true omniscience, per se. It was my necessary to test that. Without our subject's knowledge, we used a dissolvable patch on him to deliver a mix of experimental drugs to his system…”
The guest got up from his chair and began to pace.
Lorenz continued. “Our test subject reacted as expected to our drug cocktail. Violent urges, fracturing of the psyche, delusion...”
“Hold on. You're using him as an untrained killer? You're leaving the status you've accumulated here in the hands of a mentally unstable...”
Lorenz cut him off softly. “Of course not. Nobody associated with me has even spoken to him. Let's just say that he's written extensively about his mental process, and we are remotely monitoring those writings.” Before his guest could interject, Lorenz added, “Most of it on his walls, some of it in a journal of sorts.”
“He blames Keti for killing his family. You created a monster to test whether Keti would eventually punish him.” The man looked proud to have guessed Lorenz's intentions.
“No, no. Whatever she is, Keti clearly doesn't care enough to notice any one human.”
“There is the Empress.”
“Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “There is the matter of the Empress. It's possible that she's just a girl who fit some...algorithm, or mathematical standard of Keti's.”
“What you're telling me today is sheer lunacy. You know that, right?”
“Given time, you'll be forced to reconsider. Is an AI more farfetched an explanation than an almighty being who suddenly showed up one day? A 'goddess' whose name and likeness had never been recorded in all of human history?”
His guest had no answer.
“As I was saying, our group of scientists tells me that an AI could easily invent new technologies before humanity had begun imagining them. As for the mass hypnosis we survivors experienced...”
Lorenz flinched as the man's fist pounded unexpectedly on his desk. “We all knew her name,” he growled. “An entire job field woke up from a dream on the same day and started building things they'd never considered. Without blueprints! No computer can do that!”
Lorenz leaned back in his chair, unmoved by his guest's outburst. “Human history is one long list of impossibilities which, nonetheless, became realities,” he mused.
The man ran his hands through his hair, willing himself to regain his composure. He was not a man accustomed to bewilderment.
“The boy,” he said. “What is his name, and why does he concern me?”
Lorenz's brows wrinkled. “Well, I have no clue what his name is. He's a pawn in this. To answer the bigger question: your contributions have enabled us to find a suitable candidate,” he said, pausing to point toward a stillframe onscreen behind him. “Our drones are scheduled to dose him at regular intervals, utilizing retractable darts. He doesn't know it yet, but he's going to try to kill the Empress. And that will open the door for us to discover more about Keti.”
“I contributed to your cause under the assumption that I was helping bring stability to the outlands. Now you bring me here to brag that I've doomed what remains of the human race?”
The man's eyes went dead, but his voice never wavered. “I'll see you skinned alive for this. You're a god damned fool.”
“Why,” Lorenz asked idly, “would Keti have let me live for one moment after I set this plan in motion? Why is the boy still stalking the outlands? Is it possible that she has the means to place images in our minds, but not to read what's already in them?” His guest held his hands palms up, staring at them intently but silently.
Lorenz continued. “I anticipated your response, and have halted all operations for the next two weeks. I trust that will be enough time for you to process this information, and decide whether to continue.”
“I would advise against you testing the limits of my influence in the outlands,” was all his guest said before leaving.
Alone again, Lorenz considered what his guest would have thought of the explosive device that they'd prepared for the boy. Nearly undetectable (by anyone but Keti), the synthetic box would implode the Grand Hall. When the boy found it in his home, he would take it as a sign. He would know just what to use it for. It had a single button below a drawing of an explosion.
Lorenz knew that Keti could easily keep the Empress unharmed if she foresaw the plan; if not, Lorenz and his benefactors would have a clearer idea what they were dealing with.
Chapter Ten
His neck hurt from staring up at The Empress.
In the distance, a six-story-tall screen showed the crystal-clear image of The Empress on a dim stage. From the outlands, no sound could be heard; maybe there was none anyway.
He sat cross-legged on the ground, watching her lips move, trying to find some speck of warmth in her emotionless eyes. Initially he had been curious about why the screen was there and why it faced the outlands. Had it been there yesterday? He couldn't say for sure.
Before this, he had never thought about how close she must be to his age. No one thought of her as a girl, a person. It sounded dumb when he put it into words, but this was just how it felt to him: surely she hadn't been given birth to by a human. The truth of The Empress's identity before Keti had claimed her was shrouded in either secrecy or actual lack of information.
He'd been sitting there for half an hour and the view had rarely showed more of her than her head and shoulders, looking out of the City at him as he sat back to look up at her.
None of the girls in the outlands were as pretty. The Empress looked to him like a doll come to life. Her black hair fell just barely to her shoulder on the side it was parted on. Everything about her was perfect. Physically, he reminded himself. Only the way she looks.
A smile or two had spontaneously parted her lips during the time he'd spent sitting here, making him feel an unexplained heat in his face. It was a blessing that no one but Keti could hear his thoughts, most of which involved kissing her full lips and seeing affection overtake her normally-severe expression.
It was impossible, but that made the idea sweeter to him. Leaning in to kiss her softly on her perfect mouth, and he'd pull back to look at her, and she'd say...
He didn't know. He sat lost in thought, racking his brain for some insight into what she might say.
While lost in thought, he absently swatted at his neck. The insects were unavoidable out here.
Moments later, when he returned his attention to the screen, the Empress' face looked sallow and bloated. His lips curled in involuntary distaste.
His fists were clenched when he tried to steady himself. This sudden mood swing, though familiar, left him momentarily dizzy. It had been happening to him every few days lately.
He had tried unsuccessfully to get an explanation from an outlands doctor. The woman had told him that he might have high blood pressure or suffer from anxiety issues. She had no medicine for either condition. Her clinic had been ransacked the previous week.
Buzzing from behind him grew in volume, in time with a cascading tone in his ears. He was too dazed to react.
The wash of sound filling his ears continued unabated, seeming to fill the outlands. It had never grown this loud during his previous episodes.
A man's kindly voice above his head reminded him that they deserved to suffer. Why, it asked gently, should they be strolling about like that? Naturally, he had more to do here. The problem persisted.
Louder, in only one ear, the man's voice tolled:
The problem persists.
The problem.
Persists.
The Empress.
You are the one.
To deliver her.
He opened his eyes with irritation. His head hurt, his heart felt weak, his shoulders felt sore from tensing. And that sheltered, spoiled bitch’s face sneered at him dismissively. What right did she have to look down on everyone else?
He fought angrily against the memory of adoring her earlier. Oh, she looks like a doll? Yeah, not one wrinkle because unlike us she's never had one thing to worry about in her fucking life. She could use some suffering in that life.
No, no. He wasn't that patient.
What she could use is a knife peeling open that soft, uncallused flesh. The onset of vicious intent was intoxicating. He felt invincible right now.
Even as he struggled to stand up, falling over instead, he felt like he could effortlessly lift a car over his head. The ache in his neck was nothing. He'd just been tensing it all the time without noticing it.
Fuck. Why'd I come out here without my knife? He had tucked it under a section of loose sod curling up at the edge of a nearby apartment building.
In some unexplainable way, he swore he felt the Empress's words pattering off his back like light hail. With unexpected apprehension, he turned to face her.
Subtitles were projected in front of the screen. Have those been there the whole time? he wondered.
Her image wavered in a disconcerting way that made him feel like it was a problem with his vision and not the screen.
But the subtitles were crystal clear, he realized.
“She watches us all, but that doesn't mean she's concerned with what we do.”
He didn't see the subtitle of what she said next; he was considering the Empress' words. He hadn't expected this at all. The Empress herself saw no reason to believe that Keti had any affection for the surviving humans?
When he looked down, his knife was resting on his open palm. He found himself standing next to the apartment building. He had been wiping grass blades off the blade after retrieving it.
I feel totally fine, he assured himself.
“Are you waiting for Laz too?” The voice behind him sounded like a teenage boy's.
A surge of adrenaline brought him up to his full height. He held the knife at his side and turned around.
The boy was unarmed. He wore a red-and-black coat, barely faded. Some kid from town who'd walked down the wrong side street.
“Are you gonna answer me?” The boy saw the knife then, and put his hands up placatingly.
“Hey, I'm sorry, man. I'm sorry. I'll take off.”
Chapter Eleven
When Dugan closed his eyes to sleep at night, the boy's face invaded his dreams (when they came).
In one dream about a village of people who advanced on him wordlessly until he fled, Dugan ran out of view as the dream focused on a face in the crowd: the boy, his eyes open as wide as they would open.
The boy mouthed words to no one in particular. The crowd faded from view as the boy's presence overshadowed theirs.
Dugan had awakened at the moment he thought he could read the boy's lips. He had found himself resting on the ground next to a tent, with the sun going down in front of him.
Today it was a dream where Dugan stood in front of a window overlooking a shed. The shed was black, painted wildly with grey and brown pawprints.
His imagination filled in a backstory for the shed, with each detail adding to an aura of foreboding as he observed the shed:
Whoever was in the shed had dipped severed paws in paint to decorate it. The paws belonged to pets which had been taken from homes in this neighborhood, which he realized was a housing development pre-Keti. With this revelation, the windowsill was populated by drawn curtains and a jar for bacon grease.
The shed had one window, but no light escaped it. Or could. Inside was... he wasn't sure. He felt its presence.
Then, in the road behind the shed, which he now saw was in a backyard, dozens of cars passed from either direction. They had no passengers, he knew, even though he couldn't see inside them.
When his gaze returned to the shed, the boy stared back from its tiny window. He looked to be a teenager, maybe 21 at the most.
He, the boy, looked happy to see Dugan as if he had spent years waiting in the shed and finally laid eyes on an old friend. In the dream, it made sense. They had been apart for so long that Dugan wondered what gesture would be appropriate.
The boy was walking across the grass, then. From the shed's window, paradoxically, the boy’s face could still be seen beaming with relief at Dugan's return.
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