The Dystopia Chronicles (Atopia Series Book 2)

by Matthew Mather

  The reality blackout was almost complete in metropolitan areas.

  Anyone that had pssi installed in their nervous systems, nearly half the planet now, was having evidence of the conflict erased from their realities. A reality filter spanning the globe connected most of it into a world where none of it was happening. Half of the world was being destroyed while the other half didn’t even notice.

  The physical world was just the tip of the iceberg. In millions of virtual worlds connected to Atopia, the battle had also begun. Some worlds just winked out of existence, others tried to resist, and some fought back. The struggle for existence had begun.

  Nancy ran down the corridor and jumped into a service elevator. Kesselring’s complex was on the upper level. She stared at the manual controls, and then reached out and pushed a mid-level address.

  She’d been saving one last wild card.

  17

  PULLING HIS FEET underneath him, Bob stood, feeling his feet sink into the sand. He raised himself out of the water and splashed the last few steps to dry land. A couple on beach towels looked at him, and he waved them away. “Get out of here!” he yelled, but all along the beach the screaming had already begun as the drones descended.

  A projection of Jimmy materialized in front of him. “Come back for a little surfing, Bob? Have a nice swim?”

  “Just hold on.” Bob staggered forward. The swim weakened him more than he thought it would. He leaned over to get his breath, slicking the water off his body. “I just want to talk.”

  “So talk.”

  It was the moment of truth. Would Jimmy just kill him? It was a possibility. Even with the swarming attack Bob unleashed into the informational structure of Atopia, Jimmy could destroy this section of Atopia with an untargeted kinetic bombardment. Overwhelmingly blunt, but it would get the job done. Bob waited, holding his breath.

  “I’m not going to kill you, Bob.” Jimmy’s projection frowned. “What, are they telling you I’m some kind of monster?”

  Bob slowed his breathing. Jimmy might just be buying time. Bob’s surprise attack ripped the Atopian networks wide open, far more than Bob anticipated. Bob and Jimmy stood facing each other on the beach, but they were also grappling in the background, reality shattering from reality, as they tried to insert themselves into each other’s networks. The hyperspaces around them blazed. Bob stayed silent.

  Jimmy laughed. “Come on, you don’t believe in monsters, do you? I’ve heard the fairy tales Terra Nova is spinning about me.”

  Bob stood up straight. “I don’t know. I don’t even know who I’m talking to.”

  Jimmy stopped laughing. “They tried to destroy us, Bob. They would have killed you, Nancy, everyone here. Based on what? Some religious fable about the end of days? Religious extremism is a dangerous thing, and they’re about as extreme as they come.”

  Already Bob’s attacks in the cyber-infrastructure were slowing. The tide was turning. Nancy was in Farm Tower Two. His parents were in their habitat. In a splinter Bob watched Commander Rick Strong’s face in the Atopian Command center. His team had isolated most of the viral threads Bob let loose. The Commander was always a big believer in boots in the mud, of the need to keep low-tech solutions on hand. His reserve platoon of his staff, humans with their minds sealed from pssi-space, were on their way to the beach.

  Bob began planning escape routes, pinging their networks.

  “Who do you think this is?” Jimmy thumped his chest and threw his arms wide. “This is me, Jimmy. We grew up together. And don’t think I don’t appreciate everything you did for me. It’s the only reason you’re standing here. You know that, don’t you?”

  Bob didn’t respond. It had been a little too easy to swim in undetected.

  Jimmy grimaced. “And I know I have weaknesses, things that I do . . .” He paused. “And yes, I am taking control of this place, but am I any worse? What do you want me to say?”

  Bob stared at him. “Explain the crystals.”

  “I have no idea.” Jimmy let his hands fall, slapping his thighs. “How about asking your Terra Novan friends? They seem to know a lot about them.”

  Bob didn’t have much time. If he rushed, he could make it, grab Nancy and his parents, get them onto the passenger cannon with him. He’d taken control of enough of the Atopian systems to burrow a path through. He could just make it. He lurched forward but stopped himself.

  “Go ahead.” Jimmy moved to one side. “Go and get her. I won’t stop you.”

  “Bob?” said another voice, one Bob hadn’t heard in a long time.

  He turned. It was his father. His image materialized on the beach next to them.

  “Your mother and I just got a message to meet you at the passenger cannon. What are you doing?” His dad frowned and looked at the water still dripping off him. “Were you surfing?”

  “Go and get them,” Jimmy offered again. He stepped back further, even clearing a path through the digital infrastructure.

  “Bob, stop whatever you’re doing.” His dad was angry. “Be responsible for once in your life. Stop this.”

  Bob watched a swarm of bots gathering overhead. It wasn’t just Jimmy, but the entire Atopian Defense Forces Command Center was bringing its weight to bear. They’d been surprised, but had quickly regrouped. Bob’s window of opportunity was closing.

  “It doesn’t matter,” continued Bob’s dad, his face contorting. “I don’t understand what you’ve been doing, where you’ve been, I don’t care. I’m sorry for anything I did. Please just stop.”

  Jimmy stood beside Bob’s father. “You should listen to him.”

  “Dad, I’m sorry, I can’t . . .”

  “You can’t blame yourself for what happened to your brother.” Bob’s dad started crying. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” echoed Jimmy.

  Bob took a step forward, but then stopped again. In his mind’s eye he could see Nancy rushing along the corridors high in Farm Tower Two. He could still make it. Not your fault. His father’s words reverberated in his brain. Be responsible. Bob stared up at Farm Tower Two, its glass walls shining before him.

  He could save his own heart, but he would be breaking a million others.

  He stepped backward.

  Don’t do it, insisted the voice in Bob’s head. He struggled inside. Get Nancy, get Mom and Dad, get out of here. We can’t do that. There’s a way we can stop Jimmy. But you can’t leave them, you can’t fail again. We won’t fail. This will work. If we stop Jimmy, then we save everyone. But what if you’re wrong?

  Jimmy shook his head. “You know this is hopeless.”

  “Bob, stop, please,” begged Bob’s father. “Take responsibility, stop this.”

  Tears in his eyes, Bob retreated another step toward the water. “I can’t. And I am.”

  Bob took one last look at his dad, then up at Farm Tower Two. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, turning to walk and then run back into the water.

  Jimmy’s projection smiled. “There’s nowhere to go.”

  Already splashing knee-deep, Bob said, “I know,” and dove headfirst into a wave.

  18

  AN ORBITAL VIEW of the southern Atlantic filled the room, centered on the glittering sphere of the Terra Novan perimeter. Alliance battle platforms encircled it, each highlighted in their own red spheres, and each ringed by battleships. A dusting of red dots orbited above it all, drones weaving in and out, testing the defenses. The display pulsed in time, morphing alternate scenarios the Command team analyzed and modified in real time.

  The sudden appearance of Robert Baxter, launching a Terra Novan offensive inside their perimeter, had thrown Commander Strong’s Atopian defensive team into disarray, but his staff regained control quickly. It was already contained with minimal system losses. He was proud that they reacted so well. It was their first real test.
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  The inside attack was a surprise to his team, but the Commander wasn’t surprised. Looking at the main battle display, it was clear Terra Nova wouldn’t be able to withstand them much longer. He couldn’t blame them for fighting back, but it just emphasized the need to neutralize them as quickly as possible.

  The attack on Alliance headquarters in Arunchal had been the final straw. Atopia had been petitioning the United Nations Security Council for international backing to legally remove the leadership of Terra Nova through use of force. The petition was finally granted after the Arunchal attack, giving the Alliance legal grounds to assemble and attack Terra Nova.

  Due to mutual protection treaties, attacking Terra Nova would be taken as a declaration of war against the African Union. For months the United Nations had been trying to get weapons inspectors into the African Union, to look at the space power grid. The weapons inspectors were also working to understand the extent that Terra Nova had infected systems worldwide, just as they’d almost destroyed and killed hundreds of thousands of people on Atopia with their reality virus. Terra Nova was spreading dangerous lies, tipping the world toward destruction.

  It was now Commander Strong’s job to remove this threat.

  “Commander, I need to speak to you.”

  He blinked, tearing his attention away from his displays. Nancy Killiam stood in front of him.

  “I don’t know how you got in here,” said Commander Strong, glancing at her, “but you need to go, right now.” Most of his mind was plugged into the battle in the Southern Atlantic. He stood in the middle of the battle projection that spanned the room. He stared at the image of the Terra Novan platform displayed in the center.

  “I’m here in person,” she replied. “I need to talk to you.”

  He hadn’t checked her metatags. So she physically breached the Command entrance. Without looking at her, he shook his head. “You know this is not a good time,” he answered, but he could guess why. A thread of his mind was following Bob as he tried to escape on the beaches below. “I know you and Bob are close, Nancy, but there’s nothing I can do.”

  Almost right away, Jimmy had taken over the Terra Novan intrusion into their networks. He specifically asked if he could handle Bob himself. The Commander agreed. He understood. Jimmy and Bob were childhood friends. Jimmy had to try to reason with his friend.

  His guards had already grabbed Nancy and were pulling her to the door. “It’s about your wife,” she cried out.

  Even in the middle of all this, Commander Strong still kept a good chunk of himself with his wife Cindy, her body in stasis in their apartment. Several months ago she committed what the doctors called “reality suicide”—she was one of the first disappeared, people who went into the multiverse of pssi worlds and never returned.

  The Commander distilled his attention into the room. He held one hand up to stop the guards, halfway out the door. “What about her?”

  “Privately.” Nancy shook the guards off. “And this is about Patricia, too.”

  There was no reason he should listen to her, but he had the greatest of respect for her great-aunt, Patricia Killiam, even after what happened. Nancy was many things—stubborn, obsessive—but she also never wasted his time. That commanded his respect. In a snap decision, he opened a private channel. His primary viewpoint shifted into a white room. They sat face to face, opposite each other across a small rectangular table.

  Nancy cut straight to the point. “Jimmy is the one who stole your wife’s mind.”

  Commander Strong stared at her. Of course she would do anything, say anything right now. Desperate people did desperate things. “That’s a very serious accusation.”

  He felt sorry for her, but lies wouldn’t help.

  And yet.

  Nancy forwarded the data beacon Bob sent her, details that Patricia Killiam had left: evidence implicating Jimmy in the deaths of his own parents, dozens of disappearances, even the death of Patricia herself. The most damning, though, was evidence that Jimmy stole his wife Cindy’s mind, taken her away to gain control over him.

  He assimilated the data. “I’ve seen most of this before.” Jimmy had presented the data recovered from Patricia Killiam at the last Council meeting when they received approval to attack Terra Nova.

  “Not all of it.”

  She was right. Jimmy had hidden the parts incriminating him. The Commander recognized the digital authentication of Patricia. He verified it with his old keys. It was from Patricia. “What do you want, Nancy? If you knew about this, why did you wait?”

  “I had to be sure.” Nancy tried raising Kesselring, opening a channel together with Rick, but Kesselring didn’t answer the ping. “Kesselring is together with me.” She shared her rendering of the meeting Kesselring had with Jimmy, when he’d confronted him.

  Veins popped out in Rick’s neck. “If you and Kesselring were discussing this, you should have come to me . . .”

  “I needed to wait.”

  Until now, she didn’t have to add. They were about to crack the Terra Novan defenses.

  “I can’t prove it more than this,” she added breathlessly, “but have I ever lied to you?”

  Rick stared at the data. He’d always been a gut thinker, and the things that happened with Patricia Killiam hadn’t made any sense to him on a gut level.

  In the splinter of his mind that was always with his wife, he looked down into her face.

  Hell, he thought, is not a place where you burn, but a place where you are frozen—frozen in time, alive and never dying, immobile with your thoughts and regrets. The more you struggle to get out, the more the thoughts dig into you, pulling you deeper. Rick had been living in a frozen hell for the past six months. None of it had made sense.

  Until now.

  19

  “THE GIRL FROM Ipanema”—Sid was sure that was the muzak being played in the passenger cannon waiting area. This waiting room would normally be packed with businesspeople and tourists, but it was empty. Something was going on in the city, but Sid was disconnected from the networks. Holographic ads played across the wall of palm trees and people winning money in casinos, promises of the womb of warmth and security. He was sitting next to Sibeal, facing Bunky and Shaky seated across from them, surrounded by psombie guards in their black body armor.

  “Where are we going?” Sid asked, looking at the guard nearest to him. It seemed like he was the squad leader, but it was hard to tell. They didn’t talk, didn’t make any noise at all except the whisper of the metallic fabric of their uniforms as they merged around each other in a fluid, non-human gait.

  Of course there was no response.

  The psombie guards’ faces were covered in a reflective black shell, and Sid doubted they even used their own eyes to see. They were just nodes in a network. Tiny ornithopter bots hovered everywhere they moved, coordinating the activity, bees hovering around their mobile hive.

  Sid wondered what the owners of these bodies were doing right now. They were still thinking, using the brains inside of these heads, but they were off in virtual gameworlds, or perhaps living in another version of New York, living out a fantasy life with a girlfriend that jilted them or some other situation they weren’t able to come to grips with. Whatever it was, it was enticing enough to lease their bodies to Cognix Corporation. He wanted to get up and shake them awake, ask them if they knew what they were doing, but even if he did, it wouldn’t make any difference.

  The public didn’t care anymore. Everyone was too wrapped up in pleasing themselves, which was exactly what the plan had been all along.

  Sid could guess where they were going. Atopia was well within the launch energy of the passenger cannon. Everything was resting on Bob being able to get inside, and get inside of Jimmy’s head. If he did, ironically, it might even be a good thing they were being shipped there right now.

  A low vibration hummed through their s
eats, and a two-tone chime sounded. Their passenger pod was here.

  “First time I’m getting on one of these,” Shaky said as they all stood. “Will it make me sick? I’m not good with zero gravity.”

  “We got more serious things right now,” said Bunky, his face grim.

  Shaky looked at him. “You’re the one sitting beside me, mate. Have you ever seen someone vomit in low gravity?”

  The waiting area doors slid open, revealing the passenger cannon pod interior of nondescript gray walls with thick g-seats in creamy fake leather. Sid waited for instructions to be fed into his displays, but instead their psombie minders stood back and away from them.

  And then something amazing happened: one of them spoke.

  “You are free to go,” said the one Sid had imagined as the leader.

  Turning on their heels, the psombies marched off, trailing their beebot entourage.

  Sid was speechless. He glanced at Bunky and Shaky and Sibeal while “The Girl from Ipanema” played on in the background.

  “Did you . . . what did you do?” stuttered Bunky. He took a step toward the exit, but then reconsidered.

  Sid shook his head. “It wasn’t—”

  “Come on!” commanded a voice from inside the pod.

  Sid turned to look inside the passenger cannon pod. He nearly fell over backwards.

  It was Nancy, or at least, a synthetic space projection of her. “Hurry up,” she insisted, motioning for them to get inside.

  He checked the encrypted metatags of the projection inside the pod. It was Nancy in front of them, or someone that had stolen all of Nancy’s authentication. She sent him details of a flight plan. “It’s okay, she’s a friend,” Sid said, making a decision. He pulled Sibeal through the doors. Bunky and Shaky followed.

  Sid was busy reconnecting his network feeds. His meta-cognition systems flooded with images of battles raging outside. A lot had happened since they were captured. The world had erupted around them.