by Gary Naiman
Lucinda rose beside the woman she suddenly worshipped. She looked out at the hysterical throng and watched them grow silent with one wave of the Leader’s hand. The only sound was the water rushing against the nearby shore.
The Leader stepped forward scanning the sea of technocrats. “We are here today to honor one of your own. I am sorry we cannot reveal that person’s identity, but it is essential our warriors are protected from our enemy.”
The Leader paused to let her words sink in.
“I can tell you this. One of your own has saved us from a worldwide energy crisis that would have unleashed the heathens against us.” She raised her hands while acknowledging the applause.
The Leader lowered her hands while peering at the throng of greens. Two Mediglobe paramedics rushed toward the fainted green, their hands gripping a plasma stretcher.
The Leader’s emerald eyes glistened. “Please care for that green. She is special to me, as are you all!”
The cheers erupted.
The Leader smiled while watching the paramedics carry the semiconscious technocrat to a waiting Mediglobe ambulance. She gestured to the hi-tech vehicle. “You see, nothing but the best for my Specialists!”
Impassioned cheers echoed off the podium.
The Leader retreated to Lucinda who was mesmerized by the moment. The Leader embraced her, her emerald eyes glistening. “For your bravery and cunning, the Consortium has chosen to reward you with your new rank.” She whispered in Lucinda’s ear. “Please kneel, my dear.”
Lucinda’s heart was pounding. She dropped to one knee and lowered her head, and felt the Leader’s soft hand brush her cropped hair.
“Arise and be recognized.”
Lucinda rose to face the screaming mass of humanity. She looked at the Leader with puzzled eyes.
“Look down, my dear.” The Leader stepped back and gestured to Lucinda’s new iridescent-blue uniform.
Lucinda was overcome. In the blink of an eye, she had been advanced from a Specialist to a Near-Elite. She looked at the Leader while struggling for words, tears streaming down her cheeks.
The Leader embraced her amidst the cheers. “Are you okay, my dear? Perhaps a little faint?”
Lucinda took a deep breath. “A little, but I’ll make it.”
“That’s my special girl. Only one final statement and you can enjoy some Paradisio.”
Lucinda’s eyes brightened.
The Leader smiled. “My special blend.” She patted Lucinda on the shoulder and stepped toward the chaos.
The Leader gestured for silence. She stared at the exhausted crowd and extended her arms. “I LOVE YOU!”
The cheers were deafening. She waited for them to fade.
Her face sharpened. Her emerald eyes locked on the Knowledge Cloud camera floating above the greens.
“This is a great day for your Consortium and the planet. We honor our finest. In that spirit, we are beaming this ceremony across the globe to all holographic screens in all cities and congregation centers. It is essential my message reach our brothers and sisters.”
She pointed an unwavering finger at the camera. “For our struggling masses, be confident your Consortium will do everything necessary to sustain your food, clothing, shelter, and health care.”
She lowered her head before raising it in a defiant glare. “For those that plot against us and all we strive for, rest assured we will hunt you down as we have done here.”
She lowered her head a final time and snapped it upward while pointing a tremulous finger at the camera. “For those who contemplate treason, be warned! The Consortium is watching you! Our brave warriors are in the field! You will fail!”
Lucinda placed her crossed arms on her chest while praying she didn’t black out. She could feel the vibrations from the warrior sphere hovering overhead. The tractor beam’s energy field flooded the podium. Her ears rang with the familiar strain of Uber Alles, the Consortium’s patriotic anthem. All eyes were locked on the Leader spreading her arms and rising above the podium toward the sphere.
Lucinda strained her neck for a final glance at the beautiful angel rising into the morning sky. Her smile faded as the Leader disappeared into the warrior sphere. Seconds later, the giant sphere darted eastward across Lake Michigan, and disappeared.
“0021?”
Lucinda looked down at the Guardians.
“The ceremony is completed, 0021. Our orders are to escort you to your domicile.”
She eyed the haze above Lake Michigan.
“0021?”
“She forgot my Paradisio.”
Lucinda descended the steps and walked toward the transport sphere, accompanied by the twin robots. Her Guardian travel companion descended from the sphere and gestured her inside. “We must hurry, 0021. You have new orders.”
CHAPTER 5
Bitter Memories
Lucinda spent the afternoon in her Chicago domicile assembling her belongings for the unexpected trip to California, the result of new orders from Synapse, the Consortium member responsible for planetary security. The brief cryptogram presented to her by the Guardian instructed her to report to her new contact at Synapse’s Western Hemisphere Headquarters in the Laguna Mountains. It was essential she arrive there tonight.
She yawned while shoving a hairbrush into her overstuffed travel pack. After sealing the nylon bag, she placed it on the metal floor while eyeing the sleep bubble across the circular room. There was still time for a nap.
She stretched out on the sleep bubble and gazed at the hologram floating above her toes. For the third time today, she would watch a rerun of this morning’s emotional ceremony.
She smiled at the ethereal moment the Leader extended her arms to the hysterical crowd while being lifted into the sky by the warrior sphere’s tractor beam.
Her eyes welled up with tears while savoring her final moment on the podium when her shadowed figure stood alone to receive the plaudits of her peers. She glanced at the holograph’s digital clock. Almost nineteen-hundred hours. Too late for a nap.
She rose from the sleep bubble to scan the circular room that had been her home for six months. It was a standard domicile for a “greener,” its twenty foot diameter featuring an overhead dome with a sky scene selected for her comfort. Cumulus white clouds drifted across the dome’s blue sky. At night, the sky turned midnight black with sprinkled stars and perhaps a full moon, if desired.
She eyed the crude magnetic bath and waste disposal unit on her left, and the kitchenette on her right, complete with its supply of Manna bars and dehydrated fruit, a delicacy reserved for greeners and above.
A plasma chair and VRPM (Virtual Reality Participation Mat) faced the holograph should she choose to experience one of the Consortium’s carefully screened programs. She smiled while recalling her recent completion of a Synapse refresher in hand-to-hand combat in anticipation of a possible attack by Franz Harrier’s comrades, an attack that never materialized due to her entrapment of the traitor and his pathetic young toad.
The screen faded as the ceremony’s hologram ended for the third time. A copper-uniformed moderator appeared on the screen, her hand gesturing toward a recommended selection, the latest instalment of Knowledge Cloud’s “Enlightenment” series.
Lucinda waved her hand at the holograph, blanking the screen. She eyed the partially eaten Manna Bar on the kitchenette counter. She snatched it and took a bite. The tart sweetness was most pleasant, one of Manna’s twelve artificial flavors, each named for a Consortium member.
She looked down at the purple flavor label on the bar’s torn metallic wrapper. “Synapse... how fitting.”
She glanced at the digital clock superimposed on the holograph’s blank screen. The Guardian would arrive in a few minutes.
She reached into her nylon pack and pulled out a small black cube. Her eyes locked on the kitchenette’s disposal unit. It would not be easy, but the little cube could destroy everything she had built.
She frowned at the cube. “On
e last look.”
She placed the cube in her opened palm and tapped it three times in staccato fashion, followed by fourth tap after a count of three. Her palm vibrated from a surge of magnetic energy. She stared at the hologram emerging from her opened palm and felt a tear trickle down her cheek.
An attractive auburn-haired woman cradled a tiny baby in her arms. The woman smiled at the child while leaning against the black-haired man standing beside her, his hand grasping her waist. Sunlight radiated on their faces. The woman’s words tugged at Lucinda’s heart.
“We love you, daughter ... for all you are and all you will be.”
The man leaned forward and kissed the baby’s forehead. He straightened up, his black eyes filled with tears. He glared at the camera and spewed out his wrath.
“How can you do this? We’re not a threat? We’re just a man and woman who in their love have created this beautiful child.”
The shaken man pulled back from his wife and daughter, his trembling finger pointed at the camera.
“In the name of humanity, don’t impose this terrible edict.” He stepped forward, his finger jabbing at the camera. “Don’t you know what you’re doing? If you destroy love, you destroy everything!’
The hologram flickered. Lucinda stared at the fading date.
“7-15-2028”
She was born fourteen years before the Zero Birth Edict, but ominous pressure from the U.S. government was already being felt. In California, her parents were assaulted by social workers and police, their warnings loud and severe.
“Your selfishness threatens our survival. There is not enough food to accommodate eight billion people. By conceiving this infant, you have driven another nail into the coffins of your brothers and sisters. Don’t you know each birth means starvation? Are you that self-consumed?”
“Be warned, traitor. There will soon be a global law prohibiting this dangerous act of conception, but we cannot wait for that. How dare you ignore the cease-and-desist pleadings of your government? How dare you defy your impoverished brothers and sisters?”
“You must pay for this heinous act. Your child will be taken from you to be evaluated for her potential worth. If she fails the National Health Service’s test, she will be aborted.”
Lucinda shuddered while recalling the bitter moment they snatched her from her mother’s breast. She uttered a deep sigh while staring at the disintegrating hologram.
She was about to place the cube in the disposal unit when her hand vibrated from a surge of electromagnetic energy. There was still one hologram to be viewed.
She backed away from the disposal unit, her eyes focused on the image arising from her opened palm.
A man’s shaken face materialized. He was clothed in an antiquated business suit with a red tie draped from his white-shirted collar. His glistening skin and tousled gray hair indicated no time for cosmetic preparation. He clasped his hands while peering nervously at the camera’s glass screen.
“I am sorry to bring this news.” The man hesitated while gathering himself. “We have received military alerts of incoming missiles. The Seventh Fleet has engaged the enemy in the Sea of Japan. Both sides have experienced catastrophic losses.”
The camera closed on the man’s face. “Despite maximum effort by the governments of China and the United States, it appears their respective militaries have launched insane attacks at one another.”
He turned toward the computerized global map behind him. “Ominous missile tracks are approaching the California coastline. As you can see, similar missile tracks cross them en route to China.
He turned to the camera and lowered his head. “I fear the worst, America. God bless us all.”
The hologram flickered and faded away.
Lucinda’s head snapped up to a voice crackling in the speaker beside the domicile’s sealed entrance portal.
“Are you awake, 0021?”
She squeezed the memory cube. “I am.”
“Your transport has arrived. We must be swift.”
She glared at the speaker. “Yes ... with you in a moment.”
She stepped forward and placed the tiny cube in the disposal unit. Her eyes filled with tears as she waved her trembling hand over the unit. “Goodbye, mother and father. You will always be with me.”
The cube vaporized.
Everything after that was a blur. She felt the Guardian’s skeletal fingers on her shoulder and the transport lifting into the evening sky. For a moment, she could see Chicago’s skyscrapers stretching toward her. The sun was setting on Lake Michigan, its fading light obscured by clouds. It would probably rain tomorrow.
Then the sudden blast of energy as the transport sphere accelerated to Mach eight for the half hour flight to California. The last thing she saw before closing her eyes was the Guardian’s red screen.
CHAPTER 6
Olafang Tabulek
Synapse was the Consortium’s most beleaguered member. With the planet’s masses on the verge of revolt from poverty and starvation, Synapse had the daunting task of intercepting all threatening activities and crushing them before they spread. The challenge had become even greater in recent months due to increasing Anarchist efforts to sabotage the Consortium’s global infrastructure.
Synapse’s Western Hemisphere Headquarters was concealed in the Laguna Mountains overlooking the waters that were once San Diego before the massive April 1, 2038 quake spilled Southern California’s coastal cities into the Pacific. Instead of sprawling suburbs and thriving urban centers, waves crashed against the rocks a full fifteen miles inland from the pre-mega-quake shoreline. The unfathomable twelve-pointer claimed four million lives from San Diego to Monterey on that dark April night. The West Coast would never be the same.
Guided by a tractor beam, the transport sphere approached from the Pacific, barely clearing the mountains’ western ridges before beginning its descent into a fog-shrouded valley. As the sphere descended through the fog, Lucinda detected a camouflaged dome nestled in the forest below. The flight from Chicago had taken thirty-three minutes.
The sphere hovered for a moment before settling on an illuminated landing circle only fifty yards from the domed structure. Across from Lucinda, the Guardian’s screen flashed red as the robot awakened from its self-imposed quiet state. The robot gestured to the sphere’s exit portal with one of its metallic arms, its voice crackling.
“We have arrived, 0021. Pleasure traveling with you.”
Lucinda pushed up from her plasma seat. “You’re not accompanying me?”
The voice crackled. “I have another assignment. Good luck, 0021.”
She nodded and snatched her travel pack off the transparent floor, her eyes focused on the twin Guardians approaching from the domed structure, their deadly laser arms lowered, their red screens pulsing the universal welcome sign.
The robots’ synchronized voices crackled at the woman standing in the twilight. “You had a pleasant transport?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“This way, please.”
Lucinda slung her pack on her shoulder and followed the metallic black robots toward an opened portal at the base of the olive-colored dome. Her cropped black hair ruffled in the cool breeze. She could smell the ocean beyond the western ridge. The darkening sky showed the first twinkle of stars. She glanced at the two warrior spheres hovering overhead.
The robots escorted her through the portal into the dome’s cavernous interior. It was Lucinda’s third visit to Synapse’s Western Hemisphere Headquarters and every bit impressive as before.
She eyed the holographic screens surrounding the massive domed interior, their multicolored displays reflecting everything from global threat alerts to routine transmissions from Synapse’s twelve million deployed security robots, all of them coordinated from this installation and its Eastern Hemisphere counterpart in Xiamen, China.
Lucinda was intrigued by the absence of humans. All the surrounding consoles were fully automated with four Sensor 12 robots orbit
ing above them, their Cyclops red eyes scanning the holographic screens while controlling the instrumentation. The only human presence was visible atop a cylindrical tower at the dome’s center.
One man stood at the tower’s panoramic window, his hands clasped behind his back, his eyes studying the woman looking up at him. He wore an obsidian uniform, its black fabric glistening in the window’s light. Two other humans were visible behind him. They sat in elevated plasma seats, their eyes focused on the surrounding holographic screens, their hands resting on mini-consoles.
“We must proceed, 0021.”
Lucinda nodded and followed one of the robots to an opened portal at the base of the cylindrical tower. She entered the portal and stepped on a glowing white platform.
“Be well, 0021.” The robot backed away as the platform lifted its occupant to a second portal leading into the tower’s control room.
Lucinda blinked at the control room’s multicolored lights. The small cylindrical room was bathed in holographic tri-dimensional algorithms and cryptic messages reminding her of the brain synapse graphic she recently viewed on a Knowledge Cloud “educast.”
She stepped into the control room while studying the two red-uniformed technicians working their consoles above her. They showed no reaction. It was as if she didn’t exist.
“Welcome, 0021.” The man in obsidian stepped toward her, his hands clasped behind him. “You’re late, but I will overlook it this time.”
She stared at the man’s steel blue eyes and gray eyebrows. His shaven face showed no expression beneath his neatly parted gray hair, only a coldness that made her uneasy.
“Follow me, we have much to cover.” He brushed past her and stepped on the platform.
“Well?” He gestured for her to join him.
The platform ascended to a third portal which opened to a white conference room with a black circular table and two opposing plasma chairs. The man stepped into the room and gestured to the chair across the table. “Be seated.”