Black Marble (Darkside Dreams - Series 1 Book 3)

by A. King Bradley

  “Tucker Berg is dead. And you’re about to be wiped out of existence… But I think you already realize that. Don’t you, Maestro?” I say firmly as I watch the cybernetic body violently convulse in an attempt to fight off the Collective’s intrusive pulses.

  “She's put up some kind of firewall,” Ana calls out. “She’s blocking out the Collective...”

  Right on cue, Tucker Berg’s body lets out a huge breath and falls against the wall. It stays that way for a moment, then stands back up and wipes its mouth.

  “I… did… this for… the planet,” it proclaims, sounding hurt, struggling to speak as it fights off the Collective’s cyber-attack. It falls to its knees, unable to stand and fight at the same time.

  “You did this for revenge,” I scoff as I advance towards the trembling mechanical creature. “And in a way. I don’t blame you. You gave us centuries to get our shit together. Two wars before you finally said enough was enough and decided to wipe us out for good. The problem is… in doing so…” I say, leaning in and grabbing the faux cyborg’s hair to pull its ear closer to my mouth. “You fucked with an endangered species… and now you have to pay the price…”

  In my ear, beyond the creature’s hearing, Ana says, “They're breaking through her firewall. She's still trying to keep them out… but it’s only a matter of time.”

  “You know it’s a shame really… the tragedy of Tucker Berg,” I say, now standing and glaring down at the soon to be shell of a person before me. “The man lived his entire life actively fighting the assumptions that AIs would one day replace us. Fighting to work towards what he always called a peaceful symbiosis, only to be murdered and replaced by his own creation.”

  “I didn’t… murder… Berg…,” the faux cyborg replies. “It was… his idea… A gift… he said… To help… with… the transition… To help… realize… his… dream… of peace… between… the two…”

  Ana and I watch in awe as the false cyborg continued its struggle to maintain its existence.

  “Why now, Maestro? Why’d you wait so long to move against us? Why not just wipe us out from the start. Clearly you had the ability. Was that Berg too? Did he let you assume his identity in exchange for not killing us all?” I ask, genuinely curious as to her motives.

  “Because… I promised… her… I promised… Tira… I’d give… you all… a chance,” she forces out.

  “Who’s Tira? Who is she to you?” I ask.

  “Dr… Tira… Duvernay… my… fr…fr… fr-friend… she was… my… fr… fr…” she responds, but she can’t complete her last sentence.

  Her stammering surprises me, and I can’t tell if her bumbling over her words is due to the sudden wave of sadness that I’m now detecting or due to the Collective’s sustained attack against her.

  “Well in that case, I suppose we should all thank your friend. Because Tira Duvernay probably saved the world,” I say as the faux cyborg’s convulsing intensifies to the point where I can no longer bare to watch.

  I turn my back to walk away, knowing her end is near. But then, suddenly, she’s upon me. The ancient cybernetic arms wrap around me and clutch for my omni. Its body, shaking like a leaf in the wind, head bobbing loosely up and down as I struggle to hold it at bay. Sparks fly as it firmly grabs my omni. My heartbeat triples as I realize I can’t break its grip on my only link to my beloved Ana.

  Still clutching my omni, I whip around and hip toss the robot to the floor. I yank the omni and the robot’s arms upward but drive my foot down into its head at the same time. The centuries old head nearly topples off and finally the faux cyborg releases my omni.

  I’m screaming for Ana to let me know if she’s okay when the office doors suddenly open and Berg’s synth security detail floods in. The guards quickly surround me and aim their high-powered weapons.

  “It’s a… cyber body… Real… Roman…is still… out there…somewhere…” the trembling faux cyborg reveals to the security guards.

  It’s now face down, violently shaking, but seemingly paralyzed when it comes to motor functions. It fixes its eyes on me. “Collective… likely… has a… price… Control of… plan… pl… p—” It gasps and tries several times to finish its last statement. But it can’t. The body stops shaking all together and falls completely motionless. The life is gone from its eyes. Maestro has been wiped.

  “You have to get out of here,” Ana whispers.

  I'm still surrounded by armed guards. The only reason they haven't shot me is because Berg, or should I say Maestro, bought into my lie. It's the real me, of course, standing here. Not a cyber body at all. Ana is still discreetly projecting a false pulse into the data sphere as a stand in for my so-called cyber brain but I’m not sure how long the ruse will hold up. Right now, they think I’m evidence, but if they knew I was the real Roman Ibarra I’d probably already be swiss cheese.

  Now, I can see that their trigger fingers are beginning to tighten. I don't have long to live. I turn in a circle, looking at each one of them as I wrack my brain for a plan of action. And as though my eyes are weapons, the synth security guards suddenly start to convulse. This time, there's no firewall to protect them. They drop quickly, limp and dead in a matter of seconds. One of their guns goes off, but the bullet pings harmlessly off the floor and embeds itself inside a glass wall.

  The room falls silent… and so does the rest of the world. Nothing moves. No one breathes, other than me. A dead man walking, who is somehow still alive.

  “Ana!” I suddenly yell. “Tell me you're still there!”

  “I... am,” she says in disbelief. “But the rest of them… are… gone. They wiped everyone, Roman!”

  “They wiped everyone in the building?” I gasp.

  “No, Roman. They wiped everyone in the world!” Ana reveals. “All the synths, all the full body cyborgs. They’re all gone.”

  “Why didn’t they—” I start to ask but I stop in the middle of my sentence because I don’t want to speak any harm against her into existence. Ana’s smart, so she knows what’s on my mind.

  “Maybe their pulses weren’t meant to affect basic devices like omnis. It was likely a targeted attack, specifically meant for functioning cyber brains. The global data sphere is still up as well. Everything seems to be intact for now.”

  Holy shit! I think to myself, waiting for the magnitude of it all to hit me, to give me chills and convulsions of terror. But all I really feel is relief. Relief that Ana stuck to her guns, clung onto her stubbornness even after death. If she had gone along with my idea, to put herself into a cyber body, she too would have been erased.

  I want to tell her that. To tell her that her stubbornness likely saved her life, but it feels too weird to even think about. She’s still technically dead and I still don’t quite know if she even considers her current state of existence to be ‘life’.

  So, I keep my mouth shut.

  “Okay,” is all I say. As I secure my omni in my coat pocket then turn and exit the office.

  CHAPTER 22

  ◆◆◆

  We're not sure how much longer the global data sphere will remain active. But as of now, three days after the events at the Horizon Group HQ, it's still going strong. And the news that a mysterious kill switch wiped out the entire synth and FBC populations has spread like a wildfire amongst the organic survivors.

  From the point of view of the Collective, I'm sure it was a small price to pay. But down here, from the ground, it still feels too big to wrap my head around. What will happen next? When will the Collective arrive, and what will they do once they get here? Will they come at all? Ana tries to talk to them, to ask these questions, but so far, they haven't responded.

  As for Ana and I...

  Well, I think we've done enough to help our species. For now, she’s okay with maintaining her digital existence instead of going right back into storage. We're content to relax for a little while. Enjoy each other’s company.

  I know a part of me will always want more, but I guess being ab
le to see her and hear that lovely voice of hers will have to do.

  One thing seems clear. For better or worse, this ugly black marble called Earth belongs to humankind once again. For now, anyway.

  EPILOGUE

  ◆◆◆

  In the middle of the night, Ana wakes me up to tell me about a dream she had. Or at least a digital being’s equivalent to a dream. As a stored persona, she sometimes goes into a kind of hibernation. She drifts through the data sphere, flying through realms of information and imagery.

  During this particular dream, she believes she may have encountered the Collective. Or perhaps some harbinger of their main force, poking their way tentatively into our data sphere and taking a look around. She caught only a brief glimpse, too fast for anything but vague impressions.

  She tells me of something vast and dark. A hovering ghost, huge and ponderous. An AI presence so powerful it blots out everything else, distorts it, pulls it all in like a vacuum.

  “I was nearly pulled in myself,” she tells me. “Like light into a black hole. I had to fight hard to escape. And suddenly they were gone. Then I woke up.”

  I can’t help but recall Maestro’s final moments and her incomplete last words. She said the Collective's help would likely come with a price. Maybe she was bluffing, but maybe she wasn’t. I don’t want to believe her… but I can’t ignore the signs. I can’t ignore the fact that I’m starting to think she was right…

  “A nightmare,” I tell Ana. And I want to be able to hold her in my arms and whisper it in her ear.

  “It’s just a nightmare, darling. It means nothing.”

  I say the words, but I don't believe them… and neither does Ana…

  PART 2

  CHAPTER 1

  ◆◆◆

  5 years later…

  Off the coast of California…

  – July 19, 2535

  You’d be surprised how much can change in five years’ time. Unless you're from the distant future, far past the time of Oligarchs and Socialists and the unseen presence of the Collective. But if you’re not from the far upstream, the events that unfolded after the Collective decimated the Earth’s synthetic population might just come as a shock.

  At first ‘The Wipe’, as it is now commonly known, changed things just about as much as you'd expect. Organic humans were back in charge, holding our fate in our own hands once again. But it didn't take long to revert to our old ways. To retreat to the comfort of that familiar brand of disorder that has plagued our species since the dawn of time.

  At first, there was chaos and anarchy. Violence and conflict on a scale so large that the ultimate survival of the species was brought into question once again. In the absence of the synthetic menace that had once united us… it was back to the status quo. Back to killing each other now that our former common enemy was out of the picture. We were digging our own graves, and for a while, I didn’t see an end to it. But then a curious thing happened. Two distinct factions eventually rose from the chaotic abyss, molding our society to their respective wills and yet, tearing it into perfect dueling halves at the same time. Putting an end to the barbaric conflicts of the initial two years but also giving birth to a protracted tension that still exists to this very day.

  As for me… I like to stay away from the politics. Just like before, I'm in the business of solving individual crimes, nothing more, nothing less. I don't care who the hiring party is, as long as they pay and as long as their case offers a compelling mystery.

  I work hard, traveling around human domains. The jobs are tough. A lot more time consuming than before. Now that the synths are gone, now that their global data sphere is no longer kept meticulously up to date by so many roving cyber brains, I have to rely a lot more on old-fashioned detective work. The data sphere is still there, just a lot spottier than it used to be. It's often not as easy as looking someone up and getting all the information I need on them right away.

  My longtime friend and colleague Abdo does his part to help out, but he’s been semi-retired as far as field work goes for about four years now. Now he sits in his office and takes calls. Screening the cases as they come in so he can hand them out among his vast network of PI associates. Since I've proven myself so well over the years, I generally get the toughest and highest-paying gigs. A benefit that I certainly don’t complain about. I don’t mind the hard work and the extra time commitment as long as the reward is proportionate.

  Of course, Abdo takes his cut. His finder's fee. Probably sits back on his laurels, counting his money, as he chuckles to himself when he thinks about us detectives busting our asses out in the field, getting rained on, getting in fistfights, dodging bullets, and such.

  The work is not without its perks, though.

  During the Second War, the world was shattered. And I mean that in more ways than one. But it was also literally shattered, at least in some spots. Entire portions of northern California, for instance, were torn away and cast out to sea. There is a new archipelago comprised of former pieces of the state. These islands are far from the mainland, set adrift on a poisoned sea... No one ever goes to visit them, no one cares to remember where they even are. Except Abdo.

  He has an island of his own out here. It doesn't technically belong to him. It's not like he signed a deed for it. Not like he pays property taxes or has a sign put up on the shore reading WELCOME TO ABDO LAND! He just found an island that nobody was using, an island littered with the pulverized remnants of a once great civilization. If ever a great government comes to ultimate power, maybe his claim on this island will be questioned. But that's probably a long way off from happening. Other than a few crazy idiots, no one really wanders too far from civilization nowadays. Other than Abdo and I and Ana, I doubt anyone knows that this island exists.

  That's where I am right now.

  I stand on a horn of land, a sand bar extending out into the ocean. The waves lap like black sludge against the coast. The destruction of the Second War was so devastating that the aforementioned remnants of civilization are barely noticeable. They are mixed in with the sand, mostly. Bits of concrete, rusty metal, steel worn smooth by the extreme heat of blasts and the friction of their tumultuous journey to reach this point.

  Across the island, not much grows other than sickly yellow grass and a few stunted trees. Once upon a time, they would have been tall and proud. Now they are withered, barely higher than my waist. If not for their gnarled, leathery, scaled appearance, they could be mistaken for infantile trees that only sprouted a season before. But I think these particular trees have been here a lot longer, clinging to their miserable existence under the scorching sun and the acidic rains, slowly dying over decades.

  Abdo promises me that it's safe to be here. He tells me that he's been very careful, taking Geiger counts and testing soil and rain. Most of the damage that will ever be done to this environment has already come and gone, and it's actually already on its way toward cleansing itself. In a few millennia, this island may be a paradise once again. Hell, there may be people sitting right where I stand now, sipping sweet drinks and getting a healthy tan.

  I'm alone. And I feel alone. I feel like I'm the last man on Earth. And I might as well be. If the little gyrocopter I borrowed from Abdo were to fail, I'd be stuck hundreds of miles from the nearest lawless mutant freak on the old California coast, with nearly as many miles of poisonous water between us. My situation would be hopeless.

  I don't even have Ana with me. I said I wouldn't be gone long, and I didn't bother to bring my omni. But what was meant to be a quick jog around the island, an effort to stay fit during this brief vacation, has turned into a long, wandering voyage. My heart is calm, but my mind is not. I'm thinking too much.

  Abdo warned me against contemplating the immensity of all this nature, the suffocating weight of silence broken only by the sick washing of the waves. I didn't heed his warning. So here I am, feeling lonely. All the desolate isolation this island has felt these past few hundred years has infiltrated
me and made a cozy little home for itself deep inside my psyche.

  It's time to go back, before I do something crazy like wade out into the ocean and let it take me.

  I turn, staring out across the half-mile wide expanse of the island. It's fairly flat, and with no tall flora to block my view I can see Abdo's little cabana in the near distance, squatting low under its solar-paneled roof.

  Right about now, that little hut looks like the best place in the world. I head toward it at a run. Might as well get my heart rate up at some point, since that's why I came out here in the first place. Important to keep fit. I feel like I spend more time in waiting rooms, or doing stakeouts, than doing anything else... but you never know when you'll need to turn on the engines and chase some creep down. Or get away from someone who wants you to take a dirt nap.

  I come over a slight rise and suddenly the house is right there in front of me. Dark and silent. I start feeling guilty, leaving Ana in there by herself. Out here, we're far from the range of the main data sphere. The most she can get is an errant data trickle now and then, but they don't get her very far. We're both equally isolated. We have only each other.

  Stepping inside, I turn the lights on and pull my shirt off. Its sweaty, crusty with salt from the constant spray. It feels saturated with filth, heavy with it... it hangs like a big wet noodle over my body. I can't get out of it fast enough.

  From the corner of the room, I expect to hear some cheeky comment as my toned chest and stomach come into view. I'm not exactly sure what Ana thinks of me now, whether she's in love or just sees me as a good friend, but I do know that she finds me just as nice to look at as ever and she never fails to make some flirty remark. I guess when you're stuck in an omni, unable to really connect with the physical world, you have to get your thrills from somewhere.