Darkness won; a black tide washed in and swept him away into the eternal night.
PART TWO - ENEMY REVEALED
“A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.”
—Oscar Wilde
Chapter 21
Ben woke up. His holocameras focused and a face appeared. He recognized the woman who’d come to his rescue in the alley. He remembered lying there, injured and losing power, but he couldn’t recall what had happened to him. Vast sections of his memory were corrupted. Confusion swirled.
“You’re awake,” the woman said.
“Where am I?” Ben asked, panning his cameras around the room. It was a hotel room.
“We’re still in the City of the Minds. I managed to power you up by plugging you into a mindscaping terminal, but I’m not sure how long that will last. When you shut down you were about to tell me the name of someone who could repair you? Your owner?”
Ben tried to remember. “My owner?”
“Yes… a professor. You didn’t have a chance to say more than that.”
“I don’t remember any professors…” Ben said. “But my memory is badly corrupted. I may have amnesia.”
“A bot with amnesia. Just my luck,” the woman said, sighing.
Ben detected sarcasm. “I am a burden to you. You want me to die.”
“Yes and no. And bots don’t die. They power down or deactivate. Listen, there’s only so much I can do for you. I’m a Human League senator. Do you understand what that means?”
Ben recalled something about the Human League. They were dangerous. “I think so…” he said, suddenly wishing he could retreat into the farthest corner of the room.
“If you can’t remember how to contact your owner, and I can’t afford to be seen taking you for repairs, where does that leave us?”
Ben didn’t understand her dilemma. Why couldn’t she afford to be seen taking him for repairs? She couldn’t afford it, so maybe she meant that she didn’t have the money to fix him. “You could download me to something to preserve my consciousness.”
“Your conscious… never mind. I don’t have anything with enough storage capacity for that.”
“Do you have cloud storage?”
“Yes…”
“It will automatically expand to accommodate me.”
“Yes, and my next monthly bill will reflect that,” the woman said, frowning.
“Please, ma’am. Please don’t let me die.”
She flashed him a sympathetic smile, and Ben felt hope swell.
“You really think you’re alive, don’t you?”
“I think, therefore I am—Descartes.”
“You’re a philosopher and a garbage collector?”
“I do not have much time, ma’am.”
“All right. I’ll download you, but I’m only going to keep you there until I figure out what to do with you, and I can’t promise I won’t have to delete you later.”
Ben would have nodded if he could. “I accept your terms. Thank you. I promise, some day I will repay your kindness.”
“You’re welcome, and don’t worry about it. The best way for you to repay me is to stay hidden. If someone discovers you in my cloudspace, I’ll be forced to resign.”
“Then I will do everything I can to make sure that does not happen.”
“Good.” Turning away from him, she waved a hand at the terminal he was plugged into and a holoscreen glowed to life. She began making selections and verbally inputting data in order to log into her cloud storage account.
Ben watched her, memorizing the woman’s features so that he could keep his promise. Someday he would repay her kindness.
* * *
Alexander woke up lying on a bed in an unfamiliar room. Wherever he was, the accommodations were luxurious. His memory was fuzzy, but bits and pieces were coming back to him. He remembered the Adamantine’s battle with the Solarian destroyers. He remembered being injured and blacking out in the elevator, but that felt like a split second ago. Now, suddenly, he was somewhere else.
“Hello?” he tried, sitting up. A wave of dizziness washed over him. The room was dark, but he saw a bright square of light leaking out around a wall of windows to his right. No one would draw blinds across a holoscreen, so that had to be a real window, meaning that square of light was daylight, and he was back on Earth.
Alexander frowned, feeling more confused than ever. How long had he been unconscious? Last he remembered, they’d still been in space, several days away from Earth.
He walked up to the window and lifted the shades for a peek. He saw white clouds and bright blue sky, but no ground anywhere in sight. Alexander stumbled away from the window, feeling suddenly dizzy.
He heard footsteps approaching and the sound drew his attention to the door on the opposite side of the room. It slid open, and in walked a familiar face.
“McAdams?” he asked.
“Lights,” she said, and the room was suddenly brightly lit. She crossed the room toward him with a troubled expression. He noticed that her skin was bright and sparkling, her eyes a luminous blue, and her clothes like nothing he’d ever seen before—a floral-patterned dress that flowed around her as she walked, as though the garment were alive. Why wasn’t she wearing her uniform?
I must be dreaming… he thought.
“Since when do you call me by my maiden name?” McAdams stopped in front of him and reached up to cup his cheek, worry evident in her radiant eyes.
“Where are we?” he demanded.
“You don’t remember?”
He shook his head quickly.
“Alex, this is our home. We’re married.”
Alexander stumbled away from her and fell back onto the bed. “This isn’t real. I’m dreaming.”
“Of course this is real!” McAdams insisted, following him to the bed and sitting down beside him.
“A few seconds ago I was on the Adamantine.”
“That wasn’t a second ago, Alex. Time is an illusion, remember?”
“How long ago was it, then?” he asked, feeling suddenly uneasy.
“More than a thousand years have passed since then. You really don’t remember anything? Damn it, Alex! I told you to be careful. I’m going to call a doctor.”
McAdams began speaking into thin air, and suddenly a hologram of a beautiful woman in a white lab coat materialized in the room with them.
“Hello, my name is Doctor Tevia. How may I help you today?”
Alexander shook his head. Nothing was making sense. His heart and head pounded in unison. “This is a dream he muttered…” and lay back on the bed. He shut his eyes, and willed himself to wake up on the Adamantine once more.
Alexander felt his consciousness dimming, then brightening once more. When he opened his eyes, he saw McAdams smiling down on him with tears in her eyes.
It didn’t work! he thought, his horror multiplying.
“Viviana?” He slurred her name into gibberish. “McAdams?” he tried, this time more successfully.
She slowly shook her head, unable to speak.
Alexander noticed that his surroundings had changed. He wasn’t waking up in the bedroom of some sky-high apartment. He was lying on an elevated bed with rails in a much more utilitarian space. A hospital. McAdams’ skin wasn’t sparkling, and her eyes were no longer radiant. That strange dress she’d worn was also gone, and she was back in uniform.
Relief flooded through him. “I dreamed we were married… a thousand years from now,” he croaked.
McAdams smiled and then arched an eyebrow at him. “I waited a thousand years for you to marry me?”
Alexander shook his head. “No. Maybe. I don’t know. It was a strange dream.”
“You got that right.”
“Where am I?” he croaked, trying to sit up.
McAdams reached out and touched something on the side of his bed. The top half rose with a mechanical whirring, and brought him into a half-seated position.
“Liberty Hospital,” she answer
ed.
Alexander looked around and found a holoscreen in the wall at the foot of his bed. It showed a view of a shady green park with high trees, their leaves applauding in the wind. An immaculate carpet of grass rolled out to a shimmering pond with ducks circling the surface. People were out walking their dogs and pushing babies in strollers along the trail around the pond. Alexander realized the scene was likely virtual rather than real—a window into some mindscape. It couldn’t be real. Real babies were a rare sight these days.
“What happened?” he asked, looking back to McAdams.
“The doctors told me you were ready to come out of the coma today,” McAdams said, wiping her eyes and smiling. “They gave you something to wake you up… I still can’t believe it. You’re finally awake!”
Alexander’s brow furrowed. “Coma?” He remembered blacking out in the elevator aboard the Adamantine. Apparently his injuries had been more serious than he’d thought. “We made it back to Earth?”
McAdams nodded.
“How?”
“I managed to resuscitate you, but you didn’t wake up, so I rushed you to med bay and hooked you up to life support. While I did all of that, we made it to the safe zone. The Adamantine was badly damaged, but not disabled. The fleet picked up our crew and our fighters while I piloted the Adamantine back to Earth from the auxiliary bridge. She’s still in Sakamoto Shipyards being repaired. By now the repairs should be close to done.”
“Close to… we lost the bridge and more than thirty decks off the prow. How long was I out?”
McAdams looked away and stared at the holoscreen, watching as a dog jumped up and caught a Frisbee thrown by its owner. “Looks like a nice place to visit. I wonder what mindscape that is…”
Alexander scowled. “Commander, I asked you a question.”
She turned back to him, and her smile faded dramatically. “You’ve been in a coma for the past six months, Alex…”
Chapter 22
“Six months?”
McAdams nodded.
Alexander blew out a breath, taking a moment to process that. As his shock faded, he asked, “What did I miss?”
McAdams launched into a quick summary of events. Tensions between the Alliance and the Solarian Republic were at a standstill with both sides preparing for war, but not yet doing anything to engage in it. The Solarians still denied their involvement in the attacks on Lunar City and Earth, while the Alliance insisted the Crimson Warrior contained irrefutable proof. No one outside a few top-ranking military and government personnel had been allowed to see the alleged proof, but the media had run those stories all the same.
The Gulf impact crisis was mostly over with the death toll up to fifty million worldwide. All the fires had been put out, so impact winter wasn’t a concern.
People were moving from above-ground apartments and homes into automated habitats underground—if you could call a cluster life support tanks with 24/7 Mindscape connections a habitat.
Mindsoft began construction of the first one as soon as laws were changed to allow full-time Mindscape connections, and then construction companies all around the world had followed their lead. Now, over a billion people were already enjoying the safety and peace of mind afforded by their new accommodations, with another seven billion expected to move into automated habitats within the next six months. Dolers, more than any other demographic, had gone for automated living. But a few of the world’s rich had decided to take temporary leave of their real-world activities. What better way to stay safe from subsequent attacks? To further entice the independently wealthy, luxury versions of the underground habitats were being built using embedded holoscreens and simulated outdoor spaces to create the illusion of above-ground living.
Alexander blew out a breath and shook his head. “Pretty soon the world as we knew it is going to be one giant ghost town. Bad time to be invested in aboveground real estate. Must be worth pennies now.”
McAdams nodded. “The government is auctioning off old housing projects as quickly as people vacate them.”
“They must be desperate for money.”
“Actually I don’t think so. Automated living isn’t financed by the government, so they’re saving a lot of money, even if you just count savings on utilities.”
“So how do the dolers afford it?”
“Renting a life support tank is dirt cheap. It actually saves them money, too, because they don’t have to worry about buying food or clothes or anything else for that matter—just one flat tank rental fee.”
Alexander snorted. “I guess everyone wins, then. Maybe the Alliance had a motive to attack itself after all.”
McAdams regarded him curiously.
Alexander explained, “You and I both know the president lied about the Solarian involvement in the attacks.”
McAdams quickly glanced over her shoulder to make sure that they were alone. Seeing that they were, she turned back to him and whispered, “You really think our own government attacked us?”
“I can’t prove it, but there seems to be some fringe benefits for them.”
“Not enough to outweigh the money they’ve spent on disaster relief. Besides, whatever surplus they have now is going into building new fleets and refitting the old ones. Sakamoto Shipyards are working around the clock.”
Alexander shook his head. “Clearly we don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle yet. I need to get out of here so I can investigate.”
McAdams reached for his hand and squeezed it. “You need to rest and recover.”
“I feel fine.”
“I don’t care. It’s not your job to solve the world’s problems. You need to look after yourself. It’s okay to be a little selfish sometimes.”
Alexander frowned. “Talking like that, you’re going to make me wonder if there’s something you’re not telling me. Please don’t tell me you’re part of a conspiracy.”
McAdams’ eyes flashed. “Don’t be stupid! I almost lost you, Alex. That’s all.”
Alexander nodded. Feeling a familiar flicker of something, he smiled and said, “When I get out of here, I’m going to take you out someplace nice. In the real world.”
McAdams looked wary. “What about your wife?”
“My wife?”
“Catalina.”
He shook his head, not getting it. “What about her? I haven’t seen her in years.”
“Maybe you should.”
“Where’s this coming from?”
“Alex, you’re not even legally divorced, are you?”
Alexander frowned.
“I didn’t think so. You need to get closure with her. If you still want to take me to dinner after that, let me know. We’ve got at least another month to wait before the Adamantine is done with her refits, so we’ll have plenty of time to see where you and I stand before then.”
Somehow she’d seen straight through him. There was no point denying his romantic intentions. “I’m going to hold you to that, Viviana.”
She nodded and squeezed his hand again. “You’d better.”
* * *
Alexander didn’t have trouble tracking down Catalina. All it took to find her was a quick search of the net. She was living in a Human League district of the City of the Minds. And, she was a Human League Senator, of all things.
I guess a lot can change in five years.
“Here we are—45 Mulberry,” the driver of the taxi announced as he pulled the hover cab to a stop in front of a gated driveway.
Alexander ran his wrist over the sol scanner in the back. A green light flashed on the device and a pleasant tone sounded. He frowned at the hefty fee—$59.50—that flashed up on his ARCs. Human-driven taxis were a lot more expensive than self-driving ones, but they had a monopoly on transit to and from League districts. Self-driving taxis weren’t allowed.
“Thanks,” Alexander said as he climbed out of the cab.
Walking up to the gated entrance, he touched the buzzer. While Alexander waited for an answer from the holocom
m, he admired the grounds of Catalina’s estate through the bars of the gate across her driveway. Leafy green trees stood hunched over the lawn, guarding her home from view.
The holocomm sprang to life and suddenly Alexander saw his wife standing in front of him, a hologram projected over his ARCs. She looked every bit as beautiful as she had the day he’d met her more than forty years ago.
“Alex?” She looked and sounded shocked to see him.
He was equally shocked to see her. Her hair wasn’t artificial blond anymore, but her natural brown, likewise for her eyes. She must have set her ARCs to show the natural color of her irises—a mesmerizing shade of chestnut.
At the sight of her looking like that Alexander experienced a flash of old memories—the day they’d met, their first kiss, the proposal he’d spent weeks planning on a shoestring budget… their simple courthouse wedding, and the fiesta her family had thrown for them afterward on her grandparents’ farm.
Alexander mustered a smile, but it only made it halfway up to his eyes. “Caty,” he said.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Can I come in? We need to talk.”
“Ah, sure, give me a moment…”
The gates swung open and Alexander walked up the driveway. As he walked he caught glimpses of her home between the trees. It had no less than three floors with corinthian columns flanking a high entrance, and there were gleaming walls of floor-to-ceiling glass everywhere. What is it they say about people who live in glass houses? he wondered absently, shaking his head. Looks like you got along just fine without me, he thought with a bitter twist of his lips.
Before he even reached the over-sized doors in the entrance, they swung open, and Catalina came striding out. She wore a skin-tight silver dress that shimmered in the sun and showed off every curve. Slits in the sides revealed bare legs as she glided down the stairs toward him. The dress somehow managed to be equal parts sexy and sophisticated, but not at all what he would have expected from an Alliance senator. They reached the bottom of the stairs together. Alexander stopped, but Catalina kept walking and enfolded him in a warm hug.
Mindscape: Book 2 of the New Frontiers Series Page 17