Existence Oblivion

by Kai Ellory Viola

  The sudden explosion that rocked the building wasn't aired. Instead the onscreen talent tried to pass back to the live feed and got static.

  "We appear to be having technical difficulties..." The packaged feed picked up for them and they relaxed…

  Elliot realized something was going on almost too late. He saw Claudia genuflect, Justin yelled, and he was throwing himself forward.

  There was a loud bang, the flash scalding and searing his skin, and then he was falling...

  PART FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “Hello?” a timid voice said. Elliot’s ears were ringing, but for now, he couldn’t feel anything. “Are you…can you hear me?” the voice continued. When he didn’t answer, the voice started saying "This one yellow, this one blue, this one me, this one you, this one pink, this one green, control your emotions, from sight unseen, this one red..."

  Elliot coughed, groaned and sat up.

  “Yes, I can hear you,” he said. The man stopped chanting and laughed softly. It was a slightly mad sound. Elliot blinked, trying to shift the shimmering haze over his eyes.

  "Ok so that was..."

  "Interesting,"

  "You don't say," Elliot smiled wearily at the man cowering in the other corner. The fleximatter walls had solidified - a reaction to explosive attack, they would remain this way until reset. The only impediment between them and freedom was the security sensors and any real rubble they encountered. He almost laughed at that thought. All the tech in the world, and I'll be stopped by the concrete outer wall. His ears were still ringing and he couldn't remember crawling into the last room he found himself in. Confused memories flooded him as he tried to think back - and he remembered what Cerys had told him. When it wears off, you will know more. Another flow of information ebbed through him and he shuddered and blinked. Washes of knowledge assaulted him, and his COREPORT seemed to engage, recording everything as he moved through the memories offered. The last thing he saw was Cerys, pushing him down and under one of the reinforced desks that had suddenly appeared in the place of the prison. And Claudia, reaching for him with a tipped, barbed glass stirrer. He finally recognized the fragment inside – the tattoo he’d been looking for. She’d been playing with it all along, in the glass stirrer.

  Slow cop, he thought muzzily. Another rumble, another roar, a lick of heat over his head and he was falling again - the bottom dropping out. Concrete and glass tumbled around him - some fleximatter struts and edifices collapsing and losing power. It span away from him again...

  After a time, he became conscious that he was clenching and unclenching his hands, and the man, his orange jumpsuit stained and dusty, cowering in the corner, murmuring a litany that he didn't recognize. "This one yellow, this one blue, this one me, this one you, this one pink, this one green, control your emotions, from sight unseen, this one red..." His jumpsuit said L. Janix. That would be Luka Janix then. There was the mad laugh again, and Elliot realized he was stringing together events in a way that didn’t make sense. The chanting hadn’t stopped, he’d just had a moment of perfect clarity, and knew how the man was going to laugh. He looked him up and down, focusing on the jumpsuit. It didn't look like it was lying right on him though, the fit wasn't quite snug. But the bands hadn’t been broken, so it must be his.

  The floor around them was covered in chunks of glass material - the fleximatter was still working, possibly on the backup system. It was resolutely dumb material - Elliot tried to reach out to the system and trigger the emergency call, and nothing happened. He tried again, reaching for the primary system and got nothing. Worse than nothing - it was an opaque glass wall. A firewall that shouldn't still be up, if the prison was as damaged as it appeared.

  "Are you ok?" he asked, his voice clear. He knew he was shouting a little, the man flinched. The man looked over at him.

  "You're not tech-wed?" he blurted. Elliot carefully shook his head. "You're not a prisoner? You're not a machine?" The words seemed to tumble out of him, and Elliot carefully shook his head again. There was another deep groan, another shift and Elliot pulled the cowering man by one elbow, shoving him out of the way of a glass and wire monstrosity that went swinging past. He tried to reach...anything and was met with a blank wall of disconnection. Internal computer access seemed to be completely obliterated, and outside...

  "This isn't what I..." the man began, his brown eyes clouding over. Elliot tipped his head in the opposite direction of the fire at the end of the hall, knowing that even if they approached it and it was damped, that all of the louder rubble rumbles came from that side. The stench of burned flesh was seeping along the corridor, pulling itself into a pocket around the two men. "This was supposed to be easy," the man moaned.

  "This has gone wrong, but it's not anything we can't get away from," Elliot said, and Luka nodded carefully. Everything on one side had a weird, red wash, and was vague and indistinct. He reached up and touched his head, finding blood oozing over one eye. His fingers were blurry, so he blinked a few times. Shock was rapidly sneaking up on him, making him shocked.

  "Are...are you a prisoner? If you are, please, don't..."

  "I'm a consultant, it's ok," Elliot said, trying a slight smile. "Seems there was a terrorist attack or something. It's fine though - the live broadcast would have been interrupted, so no doubt, help is on the way," he said, lifting a hand to the gash on his head. It came away sticky and he realized he was dripping blood again.

  Elliot stopped and took an inventory of himself. His jacket was ruined, and a small metal shard was imbedded in the curve of one forearm. He had scratches and scrapes across his chest, and his shirt was ripped all the way through in various points in an odd pattern. His trousers were intact but dirty, but the back of his trousers felt wet and tacky, a flower of pain at the base of his spine that seemed to ooze and soak as he moved. But he could stand, and was able to see and hear properly. A dull pain spread from his finger prod - the arch of his eyebrow felt compromised, and the hair across it was sticky, flaked in and oozing. Probing carefully, he worked along the length of his face, giving himself plenty of time to ensure that his eye was undamaged. The socket itself, underneath, seemed tender but didn’t cave as he pressed it. He couldn't feel anything in the small wound, so he ripped off one sleeve of his shirt he tied it across the gash on his head, stopping the blood from obscuring that eye.

  "I don't think so. They seemed to have almost...." Elliot kicked the wall, and sighed again. “Didn’t it feel like there was something odd going on. I watched Vance die…” he said, voice trailing off. He wasn’t shocked, as far as Elliot could tell. No visible injuries either.

  “I don’t think it’s safe here, do you?” Elliot said after an appraising glance.

  "Oh no, I've thought that for a while." Luka said. "My name is Luka Marks," he said, holding out his uninjured hand.

  Marks? You’re Janix. Vance was Marks. "I'm one of the consultants," he said, obviously repeating himself. Luka nodded. “You said that already?” Elliot blinked.

  "Sorry, I was a bit lost there for a minute," he said with a soft smile. "Luka Marks?" he repeated, and smiled. "I'll have to take your word for it," he added. "All tech seems to be down. Are you ok?" Luka nodded. "Elliot Peters," Elliot said, shaking his hand, not letting on that he knew something was wrong. Luka straightened, standing up. They moved cautiously to one wall and began looking for a way out.

  It seemed that the whole top floor – all of the tech above it, had collapsed in over a third of the prison. More of the floor had dropped away over the other side, and the wall there seemed to move and spray dust as they watched. Behind them was fire.

  “This way then,” Elliot said, pointing with two fingers. Luka nodded. “I think the med bay was this way…”

  "So how come you know your way around?" Luka asked as Elliot adeptly picked his way through the rubble. He hoped his badge would open the pass wall but he doubted it. He knew it was off to one side. He'd seen it on the section plans, and he knew that i
t was probably the only way out. If it hadn't been completely obliterated by the bomb.

  “Oh…I was up top for most of the show,” he said, pointing up and behind him to the charred wiring. “Are you ok?” he repeated, noting that ‘Luka’ still hadn’t answered.

  Luka seemed to consider this, frisking himself, and looking at the visible parts of his arms, the gash in his trousers before finally dusting himself off. "My ankle hurts a bit...you're bleeding..." he added, pointing at Elliot's face.

  Elliot nodded. “I know,” he said. He looked more closely at his companion. He didn't have any cuts - no scrapes, no bruises, no nothing. Elliot frowned, then looked back at where he'd been cowering. It looked like a safety cell and though not designed for a bomb blast or explosion, it looked like it had done the job. “We need to get moving,” he said, gesturing in front of him. The man moved forward, then reconsidered.

  Elliot pushed him along the corridor, smiling encouragingly at the back of his head as he surveyed the walls - some were holding back concrete panels in discreet bands, others were bulging alarmingly where the weight of the material behind them had destroyed projectors or other essential equipment. Some walls flickered on and off, cutting off the material sliding through them in bands. Elliot winced - safeties were obviously off and that was something he'd need to keep in mind.

  He pulled out a forgotten handkerchief and dabbed his head. "I wonder if..." he began then paused.

  “What?” Luka asked.

  “If anyone else survived…”

  “I don’t think so…” Luka said, doubtfully, looking around.

  There was a loud squeal as the power came up – the back-up generator finally, fitfully kicking online. Suddenly, the black cables weren’t innocuous, and Elliot pulled Luka to a sudden stop.

  “I think we might want to wait a minute…” he said, looking at the suddenly spitting cobra of sparks in front of him.

  “Make up your mind,” Luka said, mildly.

  “Cables,” Elliot gestured to the sparks at the end. “Fleximatter is conductive sometimes,” he added. Luka blanched and looked back at the cell he’d been curled up in. It was sparking and blue light spilled into the hall with whipcrack syncope.

  “You may have a point,” he said. “Can we actually get out of here, or should we hole up?” he said.

  Elliot laughed, trying to cover the shaking shivers that suddenly ran through him. “You’re the survival expert. What do you think?”

  Luka paused and looked over the room. “I think our best bet is to try. What if it all collapses?”

  “Ok. Let me check something first though.” Elliot frisked his pockets. His badge and phone were gone, sharp edges on his collection strips. They were stolen then. “Oh, I appear to have lost my phone. And my badge, which means we won’t get into the medical bay. I’ve only got my pass,” he said, pulling out a pass from the other pocket. Luka looked genuinely surprised.

  “Oh. That’ll get you through the outer doors, won’t it? At least into quarantine?” he added. “I think mine is built into my suit,” he added.

  Yeah, mine should get us both out. Elliot thought grimly.

  “Let’s head this way,” he said, pointing down a corridor with the least blue flashes.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  They passed through three port scanners. One seemed to be interested in reporting injuries, and nothing else. Another one was in a grey corridor. Oh, they’ll be able to see all of our injuries Elliot thought giddily. The final one did nothing as Elliot passed through, but flashed red twice when Luka passed through.

  “Maybe my injuries are worse than I thought,” Luka said weakly.

  “Maybe,” Elliot said, “how are you feeling?”

  “Tired. Shaky,” he said. His skin didn’t look pale, he looked quite healthy in fact. The dust settling on them had bathed them both in a silver and gold pastiche, sweat washing it away in rivulets.

  “I’ll get into quarantine, and take you with me. Once in there, we can call for help, though I’m still certain the show would have dropped off air and someone would be on their way.” Elliot said, absently. Harper and Morrigan for a start. “Just stop here for a second, I need to think,” Elliot said, and Luka nodded. He pulled a battered protein bar from one leg pocket and offered it to Elliot. Elliot waved him off, opening both hands and gesturing back at the man. Luka wolfed it down ravenously as Elliot explored, trying to decide what to do.

  “We have to pass under the staging area,” Elliot finally, pointing over to the last of the fleximatter up there. “It shouldn’t fall,” he added, but we do have to climb.” Luka stopped and thought about it.

  “That’s the center of the room. There’s an emergency call box in there!” Luka said, bouncing excited.

  “So there is,” Elliot smiled wearily. Slow copper, spin your line, he thought. Luka was watching him when he thought he wasn’t looking, a look of avarice crossing his face. He didn’t realize Elliot was watching him, but the more Elliot did, the more inhuman the man looked. There was something not quite right about his gaze, something even less ‘right’ about the way he licked his lips, and watched Elliot considering each move. He couldn’t be sure, be he was sure he’d flashed the other half of the gesture that Naire used when people bowed to him.

  I’m seeing things. I have a concussion, Elliot thought, trying it on for size. It didn’t fit. He’d got perfect clarity back too.

  They reached the middle of the floor, carefully climbing a flickering wall, testing it to make sure it wouldn’t sever their hands or feet, before cautiously vaulting it. Elliot winced as he landed, the pain spreading up through his back, the wetness at his spine back again. While Luka was springing over the wall, Elliot span through ideas, trying to work out who he was. Why he’d lie about his name, how he’d managed to get a jumpsuit that was tamper-free. The options weren’t pleasant, and suddenly the area between his shoulder blades itched. He knew if he turned right now, he’d be brained, so he calmly continued hurrying over to the emergency call box. It was hanging off the wall, but the panel behind it was half open. And he remembered what was hidden in there.

  He turned carefully and noticed Luka dropping something he was examining. It looked like an arm. He didn’t seem to realize he was being watched, and was grinning down at the arm. Then he looked over at Elliot. And without missing a beat, sighed.

  “Oh well…I would have preferred to get out, but if we have to do it this way…” He raised a gun.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  “Will you keep trying his fucking phone!” Morrigan said, her eyes flashing angrily. They were driving down the last road, towards the very edge of the city, the old, overgrown and damaged buildings around them crumbling and falling apart. No one wanted to stay anywhere near the Clone storages – two had been contaminated, one beyond repair, and the chance of escape was just too great.

  They turned the last corner, just as a huge explosion ripped through the building. The road shook, cracking and fracturing under Morri’s car, as she skidded to a sudden stop.

  “Well…shit…” Harper said.

  “No!” Morrigan screamed, diving from the car. Already, she could see people running from the building and surrounding, and watched as each of them was expertly picked off before they reached their cars. She stopped, freezing in her tracks and Harper sighed.

  “I don’t have my sniper rifle,” he said, patting himself theatrically.

  “No. But I have something better,” she said, hopping out of her car, and running around carefully to the boot. “I’ll need you to cover me!” she said.

  “Cover you for what?”

  She pointed, picking off two sparkles on the balconies overhanging the courtyard. Harper squinted, and she sighed, reaching inside her door for binoculars.

  “He’s really wrong about you…” she said, handing them over. Harper did a double-take, then took them and examined where she’d pointed. Two muzzles flashed from the only remaining balconies, though one was collapsing s
lowly down the wall.

  “Droids?”

  “Think so,” she said.

  “And you have a grand plan?”

  She laughed, softly. “Yep. We’ve got tools for an occasion like this,” she said.

  “We do?”

  She nodded. “The only reason for Elliot to behave the way he is is…he thinks you’re like James, Harper. I don’t know what they’ve done to him, but you may want to vacate the area right about now,” she said, soberly. Harper’s jaw dropped open.

  “It’s not what you think,” he said, finally.

  “Well, if it’s not what I think, that’s good. But is it what he thinks?”

  “No,” he said, simply.

  “Good. Do you have any new tech that I don’t know about?”

  “Yes, but it’s shielded,” he said.

  “Right,” she said, opening her boot. She started emptying her pockets, taking his phone from him too, and poured her armful of tech into a tiny box in one side of her boot. “We need to get closer.”

  She pulled out a box marked “EMP IMPLOSION”

  “No way…” he breathed.

  She grinned.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The first shot went wide and Elliot looked over at Luka, his face impassive. Luka watched the comprehension dawn on his face, then gave a soft smile. “Ah, I see you finally worked it out,” he said. “You’re slipping Detective Peters.”

  “Maybe. But what did you get out of coming here? There was no indoctrination – you can’t broadcast that by…” Elliot stopped.

  “I love my techs,” he said. “They worked it out.” He levelled the gun on Elliot and sighed. “We were just going to take you and replace you. I’ve already got your tech,” he said, shaking his pocket. “But, if I can’t get a live sample of that special remnant tech of yours, I’m stuck. We originally hoped to take it from you when you were spiked, but it seems Cerys was a feint within a feint. Aleph is getting far too clever, and for that, Cerys Monroe will suffer,” he paused, and his smile became wolfish. “Suffer more. She’s fascinating tech too.”