Black Marble (Darkside Dreams - Series 1 Book 3)

by A. King Bradley

  But the question is...

  “Who might want her?” Ana asks Ilsa. “Can you think of anyone?”

  “So, you believe me?” Ilsa questions.

  “I won't commit to saying that just yet, Ms. Namara. But I cannot discount your claims. Not until I have more evidence. And not until your mother is found. That is, if you are choosing to hire me.”

  At that point, the interview footage ends, and the hologram dims a bit.

  “I've scrubbed through the rest already,” Ana's persona says in my ear. “Basically, Ilsa has no idea at all who might have wanted to take her mother. But there are other things you should see.”

  We go through more notes. Little memos and reminders she left for herself. They're all just hints of clues, tantalizing bits of richer information that she apparently decided to refrain from leaving anywhere but inside her own brain.

  Her notes tell us a couple things which would probably come in handy.

  For one, Ana apparently knew of several other similar cases. People having their loved ones removed from cryo without their knowledge or consent.

  Second, she had dug into the history of the cryo facility where Lois Namara was stored. Future Solutions Incorporated. That was the name of the place. Apparently, its ownership had recently changed hands. It was purchased by an enigmatic shell company called Latticework Systems.

  “There's not much information about Latticework out there,” Ana says. “But I found a little bit in here. Their function and goals are unknown, but they are rumored to have ties with certain radical synth groups. Ultra-national causes that call for the complete annihilation of organics. Kind of a troubling tie for a cryogenics facility to have, don't you think?”

  “If it's true,” I reply, raising an eyebrow as I try to wrap my head around the vast oddities presented by this case. “What else do we have?”

  “Just these...”

  A few text memos pop up in the hologram. The text is obviously handwritten, having been scrawled down by hand and then scanned in by Ana's own omni. Speaking of her omni, I would love to have my hands on it. But I'm sure it's long gone by now, stashed away in evidence storage by Milton Hawney and company, or either destroyed by whoever killed her.

  One of the notes mentions the fertility rate for organic men. Thirty-five percent. It's been climbing a few percentage points per year ever since the Second War. Dirty air, radiation, et cetera. I can count myself in the lucky few who managed to keep their swimmers alive.

  Beside the citation of this fertility figure, a simple question was written; Related?

  The second note is even shorter and makes much less sense. All it says is this: THE COLLECTIVE… AIs maybe?

  Written in big bold letters. As if Ana really, really wanted to make sure she'd remember it.

  “What the hell's the Collective? And what do AIs have to do with it?” I ask.

  “I'm not one-hundred percent sure, but maybe I thought this Collective was comprised of AIs. The usual term nowadays is SI though. Synthetic intelligence. This AI Collective could be something outdated. A dormant computer network that's only recently been rediscovered. Or it could be something outside what we know. Something broader.”

  “I don't follow,” I tell her.

  “Well, the term 'synthetic intelligence' refers to intellect generated by the cyber brain. It used the human brain for its basis, and it usually inhabits a humanoid body. But 'artificial intelligence' is a much broader term. It could refer to a vast array of intellect-generating equipment. Quantum computers, light-based networks. Or it could just be a blanket term for all cognizant beings who did not arise by organic means...”

  “Tell me again how I'm the smart one,” I smirk.

  I can almost hear her smile. “I never said you were smarter than me. Just that you're the better detective. So, how about you get detecting and find out who killed me? We can start by paying a visit to Ilsa Namara.”

  “That's a great idea,” I acknowledge. “Can you send the address to my—”

  “Done,” Ana interjects just as my omni vibrates and emits a high-pitched chirp. “You've got a long ride ahead of you,” she continues, while I withdraw my omni to confirm Ilsa Namara's location.

  “You can say that again,” I grumble.

  “You could take the transit,” Ana suggests as her life-sized hologram flickers back into view a few inches in front of me. “Although we both know you won't,” she continues, flashing a warm smile as she gazes into my eyes.

  “Why are you wearing a helmet, Ana?” I ask, chuckling against my will as I stare at the holographic helmet that she's wearing.

  “We're taking the bike, aren't we? Safety first!” she chimes.

  “No,” I respond, shaking my head in playful disgust.

  “Wait, we're not taking the bike?”

  “Yes, we're taking the bike. No, I'm not wearing a helmet. I know that's what you're getting at,” I say, as I walk to the closet to retrieve my piece of junk hover bike.

  Ana chuckles but says nothing, taking solace in the fact that she got me to smile for longer than two seconds.

  CHAPTER 7

  ◆◆◆

  After about thirty minutes, I find myself back on the low roads, with roughly an hour of travel ahead of me. The sight of this decaying city’s dilapidated state sickens me as I speed through the darkness on my hover bike, with the tail of my coat whipping in the wind behind me like a cape. It wasn't always like this… but I guess that's kind of the point. Why else would our synthetic counterparts endeavor to maintain this morbid status quo?

  Just one look at the sophisticated synth enclaves that pepper our rotted motherland can tell you everything you need to know about their capabilities when it comes to architecture. But why build those technological marvels amongst our city’s grave if not only to show us what we can never have again.

  They're taunting us. Forcing us to watch our city wither and die as their vertical slices of metropolitan heaven ascend farther into the sky above us. A constant reminder of just how far we've descended. Just how far we've fallen from grace.

  Still, I suppose I can’t blame the synths at the end of the day. They tried to coexist when we were the dominant species, but the organics were just too goddamned stubborn to let it happen. Came back to bite us in the end. Now we have no choice but to depend on their ongoing mercy and the humanitarian efforts of Tucker Berg to keep from becoming extinct.

  Berg’sscientists and workers continue to slowly improve the living conditions of organics, through cheap water filtration and functional plumbing but this city is still mostly empty. His efforts have slowed the once staggering organic death rate, but the overall population is still dwindling. This definitely isn't helped by the fact that more and more humans are going cyborg. There will always be those of us who refuse to join them. But ever since humankind has been aware of mortality, we've been looking for ways to live a little longer. Or even forever. And now there's a way. I guess I can't really blame folks for jumping on the opportunity.

  I think I can see the future. Before long, there will be no true organics at all. The last of us will have died of old age, stubborn and stupid, or else transferred into cyber brains. In the end, this will be a world of synths, the children outliving the parents.

  In a thousand years or so, I'm sure the Earth will be a much more beautiful place. There will be no war, no violence. But there will also be no kids being born. No grandfathers and grandmothers resting those cute little bundles of joy on their knees and telling them a story about the good old days.

  Because the good old days are gone. And I don’t think they’re ever coming back. Some may think that’s a good thing…but I sure don’t. Call me old-fashioned, but the future terrifies me.

  CHAPTER 8

  ◆◆◆

  Ilsa Namara must be a smart woman. She lives just outside a synth enclave, in a guarded and well-kept building. The guy at the door tries to turn me away at first, but after I mention the name Adriana Graves hi
s demeanor changes and he checks a list of approved guests on his omni. After a moment, he begrudgingly lets me through.

  “Is Ilsa here right now?” I ask him.

  “I wouldn't know,” he tells me. “We don't scrutinize our residents.”

  I move on, taking a set of stairs up to the fourth floor and a hallway down to the door behind which Ilsa Namara lives.

  I knock twice. No answer. I knock again. Still, nothing. Not even a bit of noise, the scraping of feet, the creak of a chair. Getting down to my knees, I try to peak through the crack under the door. Hard to tell, but it seems like there's a light on inside.

  “See if it's locked,” Ana suggests.

  That would have been my next move. Without getting off my knees, I give the door handle a tentative touch, not expecting it to open. But it does, swinging ajar under my weight. Surprised, I lose my balance and topple into the tile entry area of the apartment.

  Right away, the smell of blood hits me hard. You never forget that smell, and you never mistake it for anything else.

  “Shit,” I say, pushing myself to my feet in a hurry, checking my hands and clothing for red. Not that I have a fear of blood. I just hate to screw up a crime scene.

  But the body isn't here. It's around the corner, in the kitchen. She's laying there with a dish towel rolled up under her head like a pillow. Pale. The blood is drying. Congealed. But it doesn't seem like she's been dead much longer than twelve hours.

  Staying clear of the edge of the blood pool, I take stock of the situation. Right away, I see the knife she's holding in her left hand. She did her left wrist first, then transferred the blade to her non-dominant hand to finish the job. Or, that's what it seems like she did.

  No prints in the blood, other than a tiny trail that looks very much like it was made by a mouse. No hair stuck anywhere, no scuff marks, no signs of blood spatter or remnants of blood elsewhere in the apartment. If someone had killed her, they might have left just a hint of blood somewhere else as they left the scene. But there's nothing.

  Returning to the kitchen, with a small Ana hologram sitting on my palm, I spot a note left on the counter.

  My mother is gone, and so is my youth. And so is any reason I ever had for staying here in this miserable world. I apologize to whoever has to clean up this mess. I had no other choice.

  The note isn't handwritten, so I can't compare it to any sample of Ilsa's writing and make an ID. But it does sound a bit like something she would say. Or at least something you might think she would say at first glance.

  “She didn't commit suicide any more than you did,” I say. “I don't buy it for a second.”

  “There's no evidence that anyone else was here,” Ana tells me.

  “Right. Just like at your place. No evidence at all. Who could have done it but a synth? No organic human could be this perfect, this thorough... If you find one staged suicide, odds are you'll find another. Oldest trick in the book. You want someone dead, so you make it look like an accident or a suicide.”

  “I'm prepared to go along with this assumption of yours,” Ana says.

  “Ilsa Namara did not kill herself,” I say again, for emphasis.

  Then I turn and head towards the exit. The longer I stay here, the more of my own evidence I'll leave behind. And there's too much to do, and not enough time to do it. I don't want to get stuck in the middle of an investigation, shoved into a tiny room and interrogated by some well-meaning stuck up git like Milton Hawney.

  I go into the hall, using the tail of my shirt to shut the door and wipe my prints off it.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I just catch sight of some figure dipping around the corner of the hall. Moving way too fast, and too quiet.

  “We're being watched,” Ana says, sounding nervous.

  “And followed,” I tell her. “I figured as much.”

  She pauses. “What are you going to do?”

  “Ignore them. Take their presence as a compliment.”

  “A compliment?”

  “Sure. It means we're starting to figure things out. I just have to make sure I don't end up killing myself too.”

  CHAPTER 9

  ◆◆◆

  Future Solutions Inc. Hell of a place. Spread out over twenty acres smack in the middle of an urban wasteland of abandoned warehouses and stores that haven't sold anything in a hundred years.

  It's a sleek looking place. All steel and smooth concrete. Ultra-modern, but at the same time somehow ancient. Everlasting. Like it's been standing here for ten thousand years and it will go on standing until the death of the sun.

  There's a guard booth outside the front gate. But there's no guard in it, synth or organic. And the gate itself is open. I walk inside without any problem. A guy driving by on one of those hourglass-shaped conveyers glances at me but says nothing. Just keeps going. I walk toward the huge front doors of the place, feeling perfectly confident that I will be allowed to have my look around and satisfy my curiosity. This doesn't seem like a place that's trying to keep any secrets.

  But the whole mood changes as soon as I step inside. There are armed guards everywhere, and they aren't wearing the insignia of Future Solutions Inc. Their uniforms bear a different symbol entirely. I assume it's the one for Latticework, the company that recently purchased this joint. Or else it's just some private security detail.

  Wherever these guys are from, their weapons are heavy duty. Very lethal. And the guards themselves are almost certainly synths. They're too perfect looking not to be.

  “Hello,” I say casually, pulling the hood of my coat back as I strut up to the front desk like I own the place. Confidence can get you into a lot of places you have no business being in.

  “What can I do for you, sir?” asks the gorgeous synth lady behind the desk. I can't help but notice the size of her breasts, but I do my best to stay focused.

  “I'm here to inquire about your services,” I tell the lady. “Maybe purchase a storage unit for myself. But before I can do that, I need to be made confident that this facility is... trustworthy.”

  She just goes on smiling at me, and even thrusts her chest out a bit more. Probably a distraction so that her armed goons can close in around me. Just in case. But the distraction only partially works. I feel the hair on my neck going up as the guards start to group up at my back.

  “I'm not sure what you mean,” the lady says.

  “Then let me make it clear. I've heard that people have been disappearing from this place. Taken away. Is there anything you can tell me about that?”

  And that's when the hammer drops. A big, heavy hand lands on my shoulder and a deep voice says, “Sir, you need to come with me.”

  There are eight of these guards. Not much I can do. I shout obscenities and demand to see a manager for a bit, but eventually they all but drag me back to the door and shove me through.

  “Is this how you treat all your customers?” I bark. “Some way to run a business. Idiots!”

  But they don't respond. Synths are exceedingly good at seeing bait and refusing to take it. Still, I’m sure my little customer service snafu was enough of a distraction for Ana to do her work with the front desk computer.

  “Did you get in?” I discreetly ask Ana, as I shrug my coat back into place.

  “I did,” Ana's gleeful voice came. “And I don't think they felt a thing. Service door, around the corner to your left. It's going to automatically re-lock in less than a minute, so I would hurry.”

  Around the corner doesn't sound like much. But this building's huge. I really have to book it to make it to the door on time. Fortunately, no one's around to see me do it. And there's nothing but a locker room on the other side of the door. Deserted and quiet. I shut the door behind me and put on a hard hat and sling a pair of coveralls over my shoulder. Just to look like I belong.

  “Alright,” I say. “I already don't like the smell of this place, Ana.”

  “Me neither, Rome. Be careful.”

  You don't have to tell me twi
ce.

  Ana, in hacking the building's system, was able to copy over a map. She uses it to guide me along, down the hall and through a few huge utility chambers. Finally, I reach a more brightly lit and cleaner section of the facility. The section which would ordinarily be seen by customers or, more frequently, the relatives of customers.

  I approach the first door on my right. It opens up for me, and I walk into what looks like a damn autopsy room.

  There are cryo-pods all over the place. Normally they would be arrayed neatly, stacked in rows and clearly labeled with the names and ID numbers of each stored person. But these pods have been thrown around willy-nilly. Some of them are even resting on their sides.

  I walk through the room, bending to peer into each pod. They're all empty, which is a relief. But they also all have names still etched into them. And charts, detailing different procedures that have been done to the occupants. Most of them are standard tests, executed once every three months, to verify brain integrity.

  The last entry in each chart, without fail, is a simple word that carries as much weight as a punch in the teeth: TERMINATION.

  There are time stamps for these terminations, as well. The most recent was two days ago. But none are older than a month or so.

  Standing straight, I perform a quick count on all the pods.

  “Twenty-four terminations,” I say. “How many people are stored here?”

  “A lot more than twenty-four. Their records showed at least fourteen thousand.”

  “This could just be normal, then,” I say, looking around again. “A bit sloppy, but whatever.”

  So, I go into the next room. And the next. I keep going until I've explored probably a quarter of this section of the facility. Same story in every room. Tons of empty pods, each with termination dates within the last month. Not a single person to be seen.