by LK Walker
I nod. That’s all I can do. There are groups in my time that do the same. Rape and murder are part of their day to day activities. The news shows them constantly. There have been times when social media was awash with it. I’m sure the problem never went away, but the cries for help did. We became desensitized. It was too easy to forget them when they were in another part of the world. The thought that it can happen on my home soil is horrifying.
“Come with me,” Zander holds out his hand and I take it without complaint. He leads me into the bathroom and stands me in front of the mirror. “This was Vera’s face. It’s now yours —if you’ll take it. She’d want you to have it.”
Light blue eyes stare back at me. Blonde hair is tightly knotted on the top of the head with a few stray hairs falling around the face. The look sets off strong cheek bones. I let go of Zander and drift my hand over the facial features.
“This isn’t me.” I can feel every inch of the face that I touch as if it’s my own.
“If you choose to join us it will be.” Zander gives me a smile to go with his placid voice.
“You want me to be a dead woman?” I ask, still focused on the eyes in the mirror.
“We need you to be you, Cara. To me and everyone here—this is you. It’s been you for months now. I can only imagine how strange this is, but you’d adjust.” He rests a hand on my shoulder. It’s a gesture of reassurance, nothing more.
“And what if I chose not to do this?” I ask, looking past Vera’s reflection and into his eyes.
He doesn’t flinch at my words. “Then that’s it, we will leave you alone. It is and always has been your choice.”
“You seem pretty confident I’ll do it.”
“It’s what you wanted,” he says.
I mull the word’s over. It’s what I wanted. But the idea doesn’t sit right. “I’ve never asked for this.”
“You—now—here in the future. You ensured this happened.”
Vera’s eyes stare back at me. Looking into a mirror to see a different face staring back—it’s disturbing. It’s like looking at an illusion, searching for the strings that holding it all together. It’s hard to get past the physical feedback from my facial features as they move and the touch of my fingers as they wander over the stranger in front of me.
“You want me to leave my life and come here, without any justification?”
“We were hoping you would be curious enough not to need some big explanation. Bringing you forward, trying to explain what we can, it hasn’t exactly gone to plan.” Zander takes my hand again and leads me away from the mirror. He takes me back into the room with the table for my bed and over to the window where he draws back the curtains. There are lights on everything. I would never have thought night time could be so bright. I lean in, looking down. We’re one floor up. There is a street below us and buildings opposite. I push closer to the window and look up. Light reflects on the building, all the way up its shiny white-and-glass glossy exterior, it must be at least twenty floors high. I catch a glimpse of the sky above. There is an airy white glow to it, as the clouds bounce the light back to earth.
“It’s night time,” I say as if it’s a revelation.
“It is,” Zander confirms.
“This is the first time I’ve been here during the night.” I hadn’t considered it before now.
“Not entirely true. It only ever looked like daytime at the compound. Back there, we could simulate the day. We thought it would be easier for you when you visited us, rather than running around in the dark all the time. We don’t have the same equipment here. We can’t provide you with those luxuries.”
“Luxuries—manipulations. All about the same, aren’t they?”
Zander doesn’t bite back to my obvious antagonism. I refocus on the world outside the window. I should apologize for taking a swipe at him. I’m about to try out a half-hearted apology when I notice how clear my vision is. My focus draws back to the window itself. It’s clean—like crystal clean, no dust or dirt and no reflection, even with the light glaring behind me. My hand wanders along its surface. It’s slightly warm to the touch, just above room temperature. What’s disconcerting is the surface is pliable and it bows slightly when I lean some of my weight onto it, not enough that I would lose balance if it gave way, but sufficient to be impressive.
“A polymer was created to replace glass windows about twenty years ago. It maintains a heat transfer from outside and sustains its shine for a twenty-year life span. With a flick of a switch it can turn from transparent to opaque, to blacked out. Most modern houses don’t bother with curtains, they are more of a habit than a necessity these days.” Zander fiddles with the teal curtain that hangs next to the window, rubbing it between his fingers.
“Show me.” I can’t grasp what he’s saying. Perhaps seeing it will help my brain catch up.
Zander leans off to the side of the window and places his hand out of sight, behind the curtain. I hear nothing as the window changes. It’s instant. The light is still filtering through, but I can’t make out any of the objects below, there is only a blur of color. My eyes are studying the surface, trying to gain focus when the window changes again. There is only darkness, like the depths of a cave at night time. The window is pitch black. My palm is flat against it when it turns clear again. I think I can feel a slight increase in heat against my palm as it reverts, but I can’t be sure.
“Okay, that’s pretty amazing.” I cautiously play with the small amount of elasticity it has, pushing it out and watching it rebound.
“The polymer is exceeding strong. You could throw yourself at it and it won’t tear.” He seems to think better of that sort of strain on the surface, as it quickly adds, “But I wouldn’t try, just in case.”
My eyes trail outside in search of something else new and exciting. I’m on my tippy toes trying to get a look at the pavement below, but it’s difficult to see since both the building that I’m in and the one across the road have awnings covering the sidewalk.
“You were expecting more when I opened the curtains,” Zander comments.
“It looks so ordinary—other than the window.”
“We’re only twenty-six years in the future. You can’t expect the landscape to have changed completely. You need to look closer.”
There’s a billboard high up on the opposite building that flickers and changes. I study it for a while and the image seems to become clearer the longer I look. I guess it has ultra-high resolution but it’s as if the billboard is adjusting to accommodate the angle I’m looking from. There’s a constant line of traffic under the window. I have to admit the vehicles all look new, the lines are sleeker. I don’t recognize a single car that drives past.
“You have flash new cars.” I point out with a lack of enthusiasm.
“Look closer, Cara.”
It’s only then I start to notice that most of the cars have their windows blacked out like the window in front of me had been.
“Can they see to drive through that stuff? Are they tinted?”
“No. Cars have a similar product to this.” He taps the window. “All new cars are fully automated. A computer drives them wherever they want to go.”
“Is that safe?”
“Accidents have reduced significantly. Human error used to cause the majority of crashes, so it’s not too surprising.” A car with no roof drives beneath me, a convertible. The interior is patterned with blue and white lines that appear to be moving. There are three passengers, all facing into the middle of the car, drinks in hand.
“Is everything run by computers?” I meant it more as a throwaway line, but the look on Zander’s face tells me I’m not that far off.
“There are a growing number of people who would suggest computers now control too much of our lives.”
“What about you? Do you think that?”
“I do—very strongly.” His firm voice tells me he means it like it’s a philosophy that defines him. His whole face hardens as he says it.
“Why?” Now my curiosity is peaked.
“Stories are for after you come through—if you come through.”
Pesky rules. “Can we at least go out there, have a look around, give me time to process all this?” A new world is right at my fingertips and I want to explore it.
“Not possible, sorry Cara.” Zander flicks the switch for the window one more time so I can no longer define the cars from the colors.
“More secrets I’m not privy to until I get here? You know, it makes me feel like I’m being coerced.” I am careful not to make eye contact with Zander while I accuse him of such things. Instead, I lean over and fumble around for the window switch and flick it a couple of times until whatever it is that passes for glass these days is clear again. I half expect Zander to change it back but he doesn’t.
“That’s not why we can’t let you out of the apartment. If something went wrong, if someone was to work out where we are, like they did at the compound, we don’t have the same power or resources to control the connection. There would be no way to send you home.”
The hair on the back of my neck stands on end as I shuffle back towards the table.
Zander looks at me apologetically and carries on talking. “When we were at the compound, we had mammoth tech running out of the lab. There, in an emergency, we were able to send your consciousness back wirelessly. Here, when you’re not plugged in at the table, we don’t have a chance. The computer has limited wireless ability and it isn’t able to transfer enough data for a relay. All we can program it to do is send a small data packet intermittently, which provides instruction on how to keep your mind stabilized.”
This odd conversation is making me nervous. Glancing at the table, I would estimate it was three big steps away. Should I be so far from it? “How is it even possible for my brain to link to a computer?”
Zander holds his hands up in front of his chest in a non-threatening manner. “Don’t freak out, but there are two dots at the base of your scull called mimic pins.”
My hand trails over my neck in search of them.
“They receive the data and reinforce the current electrical patterns in your brain.”
My fingers find the dots. If I didn’t know what they were I would have assumed they were pimples or something. “You called them mimic pins. They’re not merely attached to my skin, are they?”
“They are true to label, pins injecting into your spinal cord otherwise we would never be able to make the connection. Mimic because they are relaying the computers map of your brain in the past.”
It’s horrifying. Not wanting to play with the pins any longer, I inspect my hand. For some reason I expect to see blood, although logically, why would I?
“They are necessary to establish a remote connection. Otherwise you would be restricted to the bed.” Zander explains.
“But you said I wasn’t chipped?”
“You’re not. They aren’t permanent, I promise.”
“I need to know what all this means, Zander.” I say a little too gruffly. “You need to explain what happens when I’m not hooked to the wires on the table.”
He nods. “If in your time, in the past, you are woken up while your mind is here, it automatically pulls itself back. Even at the compound we couldn’t find a way around that. A mid-connection waking event caused you to lose all the memories you had collected since you arrived in your body, in the future.”
I’m nervous and fidgety. By the time I become aware my forefinger is in my mouth, my nail is already half chewed off. I try to refrain from decimating any more nails by intertwining my long fingers together. The skin on the back of my hands is too soft and the knuckles too large to be truly mine. “Vera.” I correct him. “In Vera’s body.”
“Fine. For the sake of argument—Vera’s body.” His nose is flaring, I exacerbate him. “Once the link to your body, in the past, is broken, the new memories you’ve created here, don’t make the transfer back.”
“So, if, say, Jack woke me now, I wouldn’t remember any of this conversation?”
“If the computer couldn’t download the information before your mind was gone, then no.” I stutter syllables looking for what to say. All this talk of mind wiping is freaking me out. Apparently, Zander knows what I’m thinking.
“It’s no big deal, Cara.” His reassuring smile works a treat. “In fact, in the early days, it happened all the time. Trying to guess which of our interactions you would recall and which you had forgotten was infuriating.” He gives me a sly look. “Admittedly, there were a few advantages to your early checks outs.”
“Hey,” I reprimand him for his cheek.
“Those first months together were tough, Cara. There were a few times when I couldn’t bare the silence between us and I told you exactly what was on my mind.”
“And that happened a lot?”
“Offending you? Not that often.” He scoffs. “Your mind did jump out a lot, though, we’d be part way through ignoring each other and then you’d be gone. With a bit of time to work out the faults, we were able to find ways of stabilizing the connection. For example, we could calibrate the computer simulation to match your brain activity. Then, you could come through for longer periods of time. When we coupled this with your probable sleep patterns we could estimate how long we had each time. We were soon able to maintain the connection even when you’d moved on from your delta waves.”
“Time is the same, here?”
“We’re in the same place. Time still ticks on, exactly the same as it always has. We still rotate around the sun at near on 67,000 miles an hour.”
It reminds me there is a world I don’t know out beyond the front door. One I would dearly like to explore. Forgetting this conversation doesn’t seem as dire as Zander makes it out to be and not enough to hold me back. “If it’s all the same, you can let me out to have a look.”
He holds a hand out to stop me going anywhere. “It works differently if we push you home from this end. There were two incidents at the compound where you were away from the bed and we needed you to wake up.”
“The explosion at the beach?”
“That was a bit close for our liking, but with all the tech we had at the compound we were able to force a wireless recall of the information and push you back without you being connected up.”
“You mean that was a deliberate attack? Who attacked us? Were they after me?” I rattle off the questions in a scattergun approach.
“We’re pretty sure they don’t know about you. We check and double-check security before making the connection live. But the unit who attacked us, wanted to make it a permanent closure.”
“And they are…?”
Zander’s face adopts that, now familiar, ‘can’t say’ expression.
“Oh, come on! You’ve got to give me something. At least tell me who you are? You lot have your own compound, you have security and you’re enough of a problem that someone wants to obliterate you.”
His deadpan expression only hardens.
“Are you sure they don’t know about me?”
“We think the link to you is how they track us. When we have our active connection to the past open, it produces a unique radiation signature that we assume they can trace. It’s the only explanation we’ve come up with so far, otherwise all our other systems run within expected limits and should operate undetected. The first time our enemies found us…”
He says ‘our enemies’ gruffly making him sound like a B grade movie narrator.
“…they had a drone scouting the area. It must have picked up the unique signature. Whoever programmed the piece of junk had entered an information gathering and target engage command line in the drone’s logic when it encountered such an unusual readout. When the drone moved in close to survey the compound our own security systems kicked into gear. The girl we came across bleeding on the field, had been hit by a stray blast before we could disable the drone. We soon started to see a pattern. The attacks only occured when you w
ere here. Using a wireless recall was never our preferred means of removing you. It came with its own set of problems.”
“You’re telling me. I woke up screaming. The pain—well it didn’t tickle.” I rub my head at the memory.
Zander runs a compassionate hand over my head. “Sorry,” he says at his impromptu show of affection and lets his arm drop back to his side. “There were concerns that such a massive data spike might be causing damage both to the established link and potentially to your grey matter. We were attempting to resolve that issue when we’re attacked the last time—when we were at the beach.” Zander shrugs, but those big brown eyes show his burden.
“The obviously knew where you were, why didn’t whoever they are try to take you down when I was away?”
“We’ve never been able to stop the drones from getting close to us, but during those first few incidents we were able to prevent the drone from relaying any details before it was taken offline. They probably investigated why their drones weren’t returning to base for recharges. It led them to the compound. They sent more drones. It was like a plague of locusts. That’s why we’re moving around, to make locating us harder. But the tech we were able to salvage isn’t as good as the full lab set up we had. Long story short, if something goes wrong here, well, we don’t have the luxury of a remote callback.”
“So, if something happened now, while I’m disconnected from that bed…” I point at the hard table.
“If something were to happen to the equipment right now, you’d be stuck here. We’d have to action an immediate functional download to your—sorry—Vera’s mind, otherwise it wouldn’t be very long before your brain activity became corrupt and expired and the link would be permanently severed.”
“And that would be it? My choice would be gone. You’d make this permanent and I’d be here whether I wanted to be, or not?”
“That’s why you have to stay in the room.”
“Perhaps you could hook me back up, to be on the safe side.” I’m only two feet away from the cable, but that’s a little too far when it’s such a vital component.