Digital Chimera

by J N Chaney

  She looked into my eyes, and I turned away first.

  “Now let’s get going. Until we walk across that border, we’re still in danger. Someone get Jonathan. He deserves a proper funeral.”

  A proper funeral. That’s when it hit me. Jonathan Bray had died on this bridge, defending a man who didn’t deserve to live. Was that what Section 9 was all about? Giving up your life whether it did any good or not?

  Without a word to Andrea, I walked over and helped the others pick up the body. After a moment, she joined us. We might not understand each other, but the least we could do was to bring our friend out of East Hellas at last.

  As we approached the West Hellas border on the other side of the bridge, I wondered when we were going to drop our weapons. After all, the West Hellas Royal Guard might be feeling a little paranoid with all the chaos on the opposite side of the border. In the end, I think we just couldn’t bring ourselves to do it. We’d been caught out so many times without the firepower we needed, there seemed to be an unspoken agreement among us that we weren’t going to give up our guns until we had no choice.

  About fifteen meters from the West Hellas checkpoint, armed and armored Royal Guards came swarming out with weapons leveled.

  “Drop your weapons! DROP YOUR WEAPONS NOW!”

  We did exactly as we were told and found ourselves face-first on the ground almost immediately after setting foot in West Hellas territory. How would Bray have reacted? It was hard to imagine him just meekly submitting, even if it was the only reasonable thing we could do in the situation. From my position on the ground, I saw the boots of a Royal Guard officer approaching Andrea.

  “Identify yourselves.” The officer’s voice was cold. He probably didn’t think much of random space trash who showed up unannounced at border checkpoints carrying a dead man and an assortment of weapons.

  “Call the Sol Federation Embassy and ask for Ambassador Stalenhäag. Tell him we have Sasha Ivanovich.”

  The officer was silent for several seconds, and I more than half-expected him to give Andrea a boot to the stomach. After all, he had specifically ordered her to identify herself and she hadn’t done so.

  Then the boots turned away, and I heard them receding in the distance.

  With my wrists in slip-ties, I was yanked up and onto my feet. The Royal Guard seemed nervous, as well they might be with everything that had just happened. From their side of the bridge, they would have been able to see our battle with the cyborgs on their scanners. They must know we weren’t what we seemed, even if they had no way of knowing the specific details.

  The officer returned. His face looked grim, but he held onto whatever private opinions he had. “We’re transferring you to Sol Federation custody. You’ll have an escort to the embassy.”

  Andrea nodded respectfully. “Thank you, commander.”

  He turned away, and we were marched to a nearby train station with the slip-ties still on our wrists. It felt strangely refreshing to be able to go from Point A to Point B without engaging in a running gunfight every step of the way. The West Hellas civilians on the train made a point of not looking at us, probably assuming that anyone in the custody of the Royal Guard was either bad news or beyond help.

  When we reached the embassy, our Royal Guard escort marched us up to the Peacekeepers in front and handed us over without removing our binds.

  “There was another one with them,” the sergeant in charge of our escort said. “He’s on his way to the morgue. You can collect him from there as soon as we finish the paperwork.”

  So much for Jonathan Bray—a bureaucratic afterthought, to be dealt with after all forms were completed.

  The Sol Federation Peacekeepers led us into the embassy, still slip-tied like common criminals. It was only when we were finally in Ambassador Stalenhäag’s presence, standing in front of his real wood mahogany desk, that someone cut us free.

  The ambassador looked at us, his expression ambiguous. He shook his head, sighed quietly, and drummed his fingers on the desk. “I don’t suppose, when you were coming up with your brilliant plan to crash a maglev train directly into a border station, that you gave any thought to the diplomatic ramifications?”

  I looked to Andrea. Her face was inscrutable.

  “No need to answer,” he continued. “It’s a rhetorical question. That’s what happens when they send the military. The intelligence service might have been a bit more discreet.”

  Stalenhäag had no idea. Even as ambassador, no one had told him about Section 9. He was under the impression we were a military escort unit.

  “So, where’s this scientist?” the ambassador asked. “I might disapprove of your methods, but I do understand that we needed to get this man out of there. East Hellas is in the midst of a full-fledged revolution, and I suspect a lot of blood will be spilled before it’s over.”

  Sasha Ivanovich stepped forward. “Here I am, Ambassador, and I’m happy to be standing here. I offer my services to the Sol Federation.”

  And they were going to go for it. This kidnapper and murderer, this sick degenerate, they’d be happy to have him. Not only as a weapon against arrogant corporations like Ares Terrestrial, but to continue his work. In a few months, he’d probably have a shiny new laboratory and a new set of assistants, all of them blissfully unaware of what had happened to his last set of employees.

  I turned away, too disgusted to even look at the Ambassador. He didn’t seem to notice. To someone like him, we were just the help. He drummed his fingers on the desk again then turned to Andrea.

  “Thank you for your service, soldier. We’ll take it from here.”

  We never went out for that after-mission beer. There wasn’t much cause for celebration, not after what had happened to Jonathan, but the ambassador made it as clear as could be that we didn’t have the option. We were to be immediately escorted across the city to the western spaceport, with no stops along the way. He wanted us off the planet as soon as possible, before anyone in East Hellas could ask why the Sol Federation Embassy was hosting the team of killers who had attacked their border checkpoint.

  As we rolled through the streets in a diplomatic motorcade, I stared out the viewscreen and watched the city go by. West Hellas was so different from East Hellas—less fanaticism, less violent chaos, but the glaring inequalities were still on display. Beggars huddled around steam vents on the swarming streets, while patrons dined in opulent restaurants just above their heads. In East Hellas, people were waging a bloody revolution against injustice and corruption, but did they even have a chance, or was this subdued version of the status quo the best they could hope for?

  A young girl in a frayed hijab seemed to look directly at me, and I was startled by her piercing blue eyes.

  “What is it?” Andrea asked.

  It almost seemed like she could see me, although I couldn’t think of any reason for that to be true. She held my gaze until the car had passed, then she turned and vanished into the dark of the city.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  Epilogue

  At the Majula National Cemetery in the North Atlantic States, I stood over a grave marker beside Andrea Capanelli. The name on the marker read JONATHAN BRAY, just one of thousands. This was a military cemetery, and every marker was identical with the exception of the names.

  “You know, Gabriel and Sophie Anderson are not far away from here. Over that way, I think.”

  “We can go there too if you want. I’m not in a rush to get anywhere.”

  I didn’t say anything for a minute. The sun was shining and the breeze was cool. It was a good day to visit the dead.

  “Are you okay, Tycho?” she asked me.

  “Yeah. You know how it is. When I close my eyes, I can sometimes see it—those moments in time where a different choice would have led to a completely different future. A fractal of possible futures.”

  “Don’t get weird on me, Barrett.” Her words were harsh, but her voice was gentle. “What do you mean?”

&nbs
p; “You know, a moment where I was faster, or aimed slightly higher, or went left instead of right. A world where the people around me were better off because of what I did, instead of lying under one of these markers.”

  “Come on, Tycho. That kind of thinking isn’t going to help you. Let’s go see that Sophie of yours.”

  “And Gabriel.”

  “And Gabriel too.” We started walking, and she put her arm through mine.

  “We did the best we could with what we were given, which is all anyone can ever do. That was a godawful mission, but you saw it though. Bray did the same, only he didn’t make it. Now I could sit up every night if I wanted and second-guess my choices, but the only thing that would do is drive me to drink. Or worse. Some people in our line of work eventually lose it, and it’s not at all uncommon. The kinds of thoughts you’re having will eat you up, unless you tell yourself right now that you aren’t going to let that happen.”

  “It’s not that simple. You can’t just control what you think about.”

  “No, you can’t. Here are the A’s. I’ll keep an eye out for Anderson.” She pointed at the markers then continued with her line of thought.

  “You can’t control what you think about, but you can make up your mind not to listen to certain thoughts. The ones that don’t have your best interests at heart, the thoughts that want to drive you insane. I don’t allow the specters of past mistakes to haunt me, to drive me to inaction. The best thing I can do, the best thing either of us can do, is to honor the sacrifice by continuing the fight. The same fight your friend Gabe was fighting. The same fight Bray gave his life for.”

  We found the graves we were looking for. GABRIEL ANDERSON, right next to SOPHIE ANDERSON. I looked down at them, remembering our time together—Gabriel’s long and rambling anecdotes about his life as an Arbiter, afternoons drinking coffee with Sophie…

  “What fight is that?” I asked.

  “The fight to make the solar system a better place, a place where people can live out their lives without fear or injustice. A place where people don’t have to live the way they do in East Hellas.”

  I stared down at the graves, unsure if the Sol Federation had any intention of doing any of those things. Unsure of everything, but needing to believe in something. Can you fight for a cause without ever knowing if that cause is real in the first place?

  “That will have to do.” I bowed my head and talked to my lost friends in silence. They didn’t join the conversation, but there’s nothing unusual about that, of course.

  When I opened my eyes, Andrea was waiting nearby. “Are you ready to go? I think both of us could use a drink.”

  They say that officers have no friends, but that wasn’t what I felt as we left the cemetery. Maybe what I really needed was not something to believe in, just a few solid people to fight beside me. “Okay, chief. First round is on you. You know, I sometimes wonder if I think too much.”

  She smiled. “Really, Tycho? I never would have guessed.”

  That got me laughing. The mission was over, and it was finally time for that after-mission beer. Everything else would have to wait, and the solar system could solve its own problems, at least for a little while.

  Tycho will return in MEMETIC DRIFT, coming May 2020.

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  About J.N. Chaney

  J. N. Chaney is a USA Today Bestselling author and has a Master's of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. He fancies himself quite the Super Mario Bros. fan. When he isn’t writing or gaming, you can find him online at www.jnchaney.com.

  He migrates often, but was last seen in Las Vegas, NV. Any sightings should be reported, as they are rare.