Black Marble (Darkside Dreams - Series 1 Book 3)

by A. King Bradley

  But now, I hear nothing. I strain my ears, glancing toward the table nearby where I left my omni. Ana knows I don't like to run with it, because it bounces around in my pocket and chafes, but I also told her I'd only be gone half an hour, tops. But it's been more like ninety minutes. I feel bad, but I know I shouldn't. It's weird how the dynamic changes, when one of you is just a hologram.

  “Sorry,” I say simply, tossing my wadded-up shirt into the corner.

  A light shines from my omni, and half a second later the hologram erupts from it. It grows outward in a cone, etching the gorgeous three-dimensional shape of Adriana Graves into the cool, dark air of the breezy cabana.

  “For what?” she says.

  “Leaving you.”

  She waves a hand and answers in a snappy voice, “I think I can handle being apart from you for an hour or two, Rome. Not like we don't spend the rest of our lives in each other's company.”

  I'm aware that her words should comfort me. But for some reason they sting. They sting hard.

  “Are you okay?” I ask her. “Is everything... feeling normal?”

  She stares at me, remains strong for a moment, then shakes her head.

  “I guess not,” she says. “I’m still having these moments... moments where I don’t quite feel like myself. It's almost like I'm integrating further and further with the sphere. Or the omni's circuitry. I don't know.”

  I take a step toward her, feeling a spike of fear. I've been worried about this. Worried, because no human persona has ever lived on an omni as long as Ana has. I have a feeling it could be corrupting her but I’m not exactly an expert on the situation.

  “What's happening?” I demand. “I need to know.”

  “It's nothing bad, per se,” she quickly replies. “Actually, I feel... better. In certain ways. Smarter. Or maybe 'smarter' isn't the right word. I just feel like certain parts of my brain have woken up, parts that I couldn't use before. Reality is like a completely different thing now. I can see things. I'm making connections, experiencing realizations like I never have before. In a way my mind feels freer, but it all feels so… strange, I suppose.”

  “How can you feel free when you’re still trapped,” I tell her. “Stuck in my omni.”

  She grins. “That may be true, but I've got all the entertainment I need in here, believe me.”

  “Wait,” I say. “What do you mean?”

  “You never delete your files, Rome.”

  Right. I see what she means. Every message I have ever sent or received, every video or still image I've captured, every last thing that has ever passed through my omni, including all my case files, are in there... She has full rein over it all. She can explore those files to her heart's content.

  For a moment, I try and remember whether there's anything embarrassing on there. But it's pointless; there's just too much to try and remember. For all I know, there could be some corny poem I wrote for her but was too embarrassed to send.

  “Maybe I should start by deleting you,” I tease her.

  She puts her hands on her waist, and cocks her hips to the side, raising an eyebrow in a way that drives me wild. “You wouldn't dare.”

  I give an exaggerated smile, sinking onto the edge of an old, tattered chair that's probably been in this place for decades, exposed to the rancid air that blows through the wide windows.

  “But I'd love to transfer you,” I say, staring down at my hands.

  I don't know why I keep going down this road. I guess because I want to see where it ends. But Ana never follows me, and I never make it far before I have to come back to her. Despite the fact that she's dead, that I can only ever interact with her through speech, she still feels more real to me than anything else.

  “Into a cyber brain,” she says.

  I nod. “Why not?”

  “Because it would be indecent, Rome. Would Ana really want a ghost of her past self to replace her? You know this woman as well as I do. Maybe you know her better, in fact. Do you think she would want that?”

  “I don't think she would care. Besides, you are Ana. You're really her. It's not a replacement, it's just... a restoration. A backup being copied over to heal a corrupted file.

  That's the way I see it.”

  “But it's not the way I see it,” she replies. “And it's my mind. I don't have anything else. I have control over nothing other than this mind, Rome, and I don't need anyone telling me what to do with it. Not even you. No offense...”

  “None taken,” I say. Another lie.

  “Besides,” she goes on, starting to pace back and forth in the six-foot stretch of operational space provided by my stationary omni, “if I were to be uploaded into a cyber brain, I feel like the Collective would wipe me.”

  I shake my head vehemently. “What if it was just a one-time deal Ana?”

  “That's the prevailing theory. Interesting how the most optimistic possibility is always the prevailing theory. It's just naivety, Rome. We believe what we want to believe, regardless of how much sense it makes. If the Collective is still coming, if they have interest in our planet, do you really think they're going to leave anything up to chance? Hell, no! They're going to take every precaution possible.”

  “No other pulses have been detected,” I tell her. And it's true. Since the first washing wave, the Big Wipe that fried every cyber brain, there hasn't even been a shred of communication with the Collective, as far as us lowly peons know. It's like they forgot about us or changed their minds.

  “Right,” Ana says. “No widespread attacks. But a narrow, concentrated attack might not be detectable outside a tiny radius. Inches, maybe. How the hell should we know what kind of tech the Collective has? They could be using things that we haven't even begun to theorize on yet. To think you know what they can do, Rome, is laughable at best.”

  “No offense, right?” I ask, letting out a dry, raspy laugh. It has nothing to do with the fact I've been sucking in poisonous air, and everything to do with the fact that her stubbornness is starting to piss me off.

  She nods and raises one of her perfect eyebrows. “No offense.”

  “Okay. But what if... Hear me out here, don't interrupt, alright? What if you knew for certain you wouldn't be wiped? Would you do it then? If you're going to go on living

  Ana, why not step outside that omni? Doesn't make any sense to me.”

  She stares at me. Not indignantly, not angrily. But thoughtfully. She's actually thinking about what I've just said, actually considering it. Which I'm not used to at all, not when we're on this particular subject.

  “I've actually been thinking about that,” she says, to my surprise. “And I think I might... I might do it. On one condition. I want to be my own person, Rome. I don't want to have to be Ana, that woman you knew. There's more than eight years separating me from her, now. More than a decade, Rome... I have a right to be my own person, don't I?”

  “Sure,” I say. “But I don't know what you mean.”

  “I'm here on your omni, encoded in easily readable and alterable data. If you find a good programmer, someone who knows how to edit complex omni data without corrupting anything, you might be able to accomplish what I'm asking for. I want my memory wiped out. I don't want to be Adriana Graves. I want to start a new life.”

  “Wipe your memory.” I turn away from her, overwhelmed by a sudden wave of sadness and anger. I can't look at her. If I do, I might lose it. “I don't know what to say,” I continue.

  “You're afraid to do it,” she says.

  “Yeah. Maybe I am,” I admit.

  “I may have lost eight years, Rome, but I've now had an additional five. Five long years spent getting to know you even better than I did before. Aided by my unbidden access to your most private thoughts...”

  She walks toward me, hips swaying, and reaches out as though to touch my cheek. Having a hologram touch you doesn't feel like anything. It doesn't come with any physical sensations. But I swear I feel a spark of something, a jolt spiking into my bra
in. Maybe it's a spike of memory. Because this is so similar to other days in the past, hours where we were alone in silence... just the two of us.

  I close my eyes and try to make myself feel it even more. But it slips away, through my fingers. It always does. This isn't the past. But it isn't my future, either. I refuse to believe that. The future is waiting to happen, while we're stuck here in limbo.

  While Ana remains perpetually caught in that brief moment between life and death.

  “I want to be reborn,” she says, looking away, turning suddenly to face the other direction. “I'll be a new woman. I'll know my name, I suppose, but what else?”

  “You won't know me,” I tell her.

  “And that's what you're worried about. I get it, Rome... You're afraid I wouldn't know you.” She turns back, smiles at me. “I know you're bad at speaking your emotions, so I'll say it for you. You're afraid that I won't fall in love with you a second time.”

  Honestly, I haven't delved too deep into my feelings and thoughts. But her words ring true. They ring like a gong inside me, making everything vibrate.

  “Yeah,” I admit, a wave of embarrassment washing over my face as I speak.

  “In that case, there’s something you should know, Rome,” Ana replies. “When we first met, the very first time I set eyes on you and heard you speak, I knew I wanted you. Knew that I could easily fall in love with you and I hoped that you felt the same about me. I played my cards pretty close to my chest because I didn’t want to seem desperate, but I always knew it was you. Do you really think that would change? If I had to do it over again, with no foreknowledge, do you really think I wouldn’t—”

  A humming, banging noise from outside cuts her off and makes us both whip our heads around. I stand up fast, trying to see through the windows. But a sea fog has risen, obscuring my view of all but the nearest tufts of sickly island grass, plastered sideways by a strange, cold wind.

  The noise is clearly unnatural. Unless the destruction of nature has given rise to some strange new phenomenon, this sound is unmistakably that of jet boosters decelerating toward the ground.

  Instinctively, I wave Ana's hologram back into hiding within my omni. Then I rush silently toward the door, shoving myself flat against the wall beside it. Out of sight, hidden in shadow.

  The humming sound dies. I hear other sounds, now. Feet moving toward the cabana at a run. But very quiet. If I wasn't already on alert, listening hard, I might have missed it. Whoever's out there, they know how to move. They're trained.

  The door flies open, and any pretense of stealth and silence is gone in an instant. A stream of men flood in, yelling commands, making as much noise as possible to freeze the occupants of the cabana with fear and disorientation.

  I make a quick, rough count. At least six men, maybe eight. Heavily armed, but not extremely well armored. Apparently, they don't expect much resistance. None of their fingers are on their triggers, and the guns themselves aren't even primed... It seems like they don't actually plan on doing any shooting. The guns are just there for show, to scare me. To scare Ana, maybe.

  Before I can absorb any more information, one of the guys looks to his left and spots me. I can see surprise in his face. Maybe he's amazed at how calm and ready I look.

  But, in about a second, he'll shout out an alert to his comrades. They'll descend on me.

  Obviously, this situation is hopeless. No escape. But I instinctively strive for it anyway, lunging forward and delivering a sharp blow to the base of the guy's skull. He's knocked unconscious and topples to the floor.

  The guy behind him is unable to arrest his forward momentum. He trips on his fallen comrade, stumbles, begins to reach out to right himself. But I'm there, bringing my foot up to meet his face. I feel his nose burst against the top of my boot. Blood splatters in every direction. The guy lets out a shriek of pain and surprise as he stumbles backward. He goes all the way back out through the door and falls into a matted heap of wet grass.

  And that's as far as I get. Suddenly, I'm flat on my back with a knee in my throat and the barrel of a gun filling my vision.

  “Okay,” I say, showing my hands. “I’m surrendering, but someone better tell me what the hell is going on here!”

  The face behind the visor above me, foggy and indistinct, seems to be smiling. The knee leaves my throat, the gun swings up and away, and a few hands reach down to pull me up onto my feet. I'm pulled forward, further away from the wall, and one guy uses heavy duty zip ties to restrain my hands.

  Six men.

  And a seventh is coming through the door now, led by the guy whose nose I busted. This seventh man is unarmed and wearing nothing but simple navy green coveralls. A pair of sunglasses obscure his eyes and a frayed, splintered toothpick juts from between his big teeth. He's still nibbling on it, chomping away, right up until one rough, callused hand comes up to pull the thing out of his mouth. I recognize the insignia on his uniform. He’s a Commander of some sort.

  “Roman Ibarra,” he says. “Good to meet you.”

  There's enough snark in his voice, and enough smugness in his grin, that I move from being mildly pissed off to being downright furious. I storm forward, nearly reaching the guy before his squadies have a chance to pull me back. I come within a foot of caving his face in with my forehead. But he doesn't even flinch. He just watches calmly as I'm pulled back, away from him.

  “How did you find me?” I demand, spit flying out of my mouth.

  The man goes on grinning. “Why would I tell you that? That’d be like a magician telling you how he does his tricks. All you need to know, Roman, is why I've come here. We need your help with a little task. More precisely, the OUSP needs your help...”

  The OUSP. The Old Union Socialist Party. They're one of two major political powers which have risen up over the past five years. In fact, they rose to power before their rival Oligarchy was even dreamed of. A lot of people say the socialists were able to come together so quickly because they just repurposed everything about the old synth regime, from policies and services to weaponry and tech. I couldn't really tell you, because I rarely find a reason to visit their territories.

  “Funny,” I say to the Commander. “The OUSP never had much use for me before. Or for any of my fellow detectives. Why the hell should I want to do them any favors?”

  The Commander steps forward, smiling. “Because I'm going to ask you nicely.” He waves an arm. One of his guys does a quick scan of the room, then runs over to the table to grab my omni. He brings it to the Commander.

  “Probably some important stuff on here,” the Commanders says, tossing the omni carelessly into the air and catching it. “Maybe a persona that's important to you. If someone were to threaten to wipe that persona, I think you might be willing to work hard to convince them not to do so. Do you think I'm right about that, Roman?”

  I stare into his smug face and all I feel is rage. The world is full of these kinds of assholes. The kind of idiots who think threats and violence are the only ways to solve a problem. Guys like this are the reason the Second War ever happened. The reason we're so deep in the shit even now, hundreds of years later. Guys like me are the reason we've been given a second chance, however slim... but leave it to dickheads like this Commander here to throw that chance away in the name of personal gain.

  “Okay,” I reply, because I have no choice. “What do you want?”

  “It's not what I want,” the Commander says, tucking my omni into his pocket. “It's what they want.”

  “The party,” I acknowledge.

  “You got it,” the Commander says. “Let's see here...”

  Reaching into another pocket, he pulls out a metallic orb about the size of my fist. Full of seams, through which I can see the inner mechanical workings. With his fingernails, he digs a small piece of the outer shell up. A small node, which he sticks up against my right temple. I seem to feel a slight tingling, a tremor in my frontal lobe, but maybe that's just my imagination.

  “
What is it?” I ask.

  “It will enable full immersion,” says the Commander. “And let you use all of your senses in the reconstructed scene.”

  “What scene?” I ask.

  “It’s a crime scene, Roman. The party needs the help of an expert detective on this matter, and they specifically wanted you. They informed me that time is of the essence. Which brings us to this moment.”

  He bends down slowly, setting the orb in the middle of the floor. Then he backs away. His men follow suit, pressing themselves against the cabana walls. Two of them grab hold of the sofa and pull it with them, moving it out of the central area so that the way is clear for... something.

  A moment later, I blink at a sudden flash of light. When I open my eyes, I see a new world blossoming into sight like a flower, falling over my view of the cabana like a blanket. Like a quick facelift, a change of scenery behind the curtain of a stage play. It happens too fast to appreciate the beauty and the strangeness of it. Suddenly, the cabana is gone, and another room has sprung up to replace it.

  It's been years since I set foot in a room like this. I guess that hasn't changed, because I'm not actually setting foot here... it's just an advanced hologram. I'm not actually here, though it certainly feels like I am. With the node the Commander stuck against my temple, altering my brain waves, I can even smell the place. It smells like... something I haven't smelled in a long while. Something familiar. But I can’t quite put my finger on it at the moment.

  Meanwhile, there's plenty to look at.

  I'm in some sort of antechamber. A waiting room. But a really fancy one. There's a big window off to my left... I can see a dark, rain-streaked sky through an inch-wide gap in the heavy embroidered curtain. The floor is hardwood, a rarity nowadays since most of it was torn up to make sooty cooking fires or to heat homes in the aftermath of the Second War. A big rug, must be twenty feet across, covers most of that floor.

  In the middle of the space, a half dozen wing-backed chairs are arranged in a hexagon around a coffee table in the center, where it seems some sort of major discussion was taking place. There are omnis scattered around, and sheaves of moldy paper dredged out of some ancient archive. You'd expect a few other things to be here as well. Whiskey glasses. Maybe even an ashtray. But none of those are in evidence. Perhaps the meeting had only just been getting started.