“Let me guess, the prescription is to send me back in?”
“I’m afraid the Mindscape can’t help you this time. You are suffering from acute derealization disorder—DD for short.”
“What’s that?”
“You spent so much time living in the Mindscape that reality no longer seems real to you. You are questioning what is real and what is virtual. Unfortunately, this is a dangerous condition, both for you and for those around you.”
“How so?”
“You were suffering from the same condition when you chose to wake up from the Mindscape. It is what drove you to jump from your balcony and fall 7,000 feet to your death.”
“You were watching? What else were you watching, you pervert? Maybe you also saw me and Viviana—I mean Catalina—in the pool?”
Doctor Duvan shook his head. “I was not watching anything. Only Benevolence is allowed to observe the Mindscape, and the kind of voyeurism you are referring to is illegal. I’m merely going on what Benevolence wrote in your file.”
Alexander nodded absently, his gaze flicking over the walls, wondering where and how he was going to find the seam in this reality.
“I’m going to recommend a specialist that you can see when you leave here. Meanwhile, Benevolence has suggested you should not be left alone right now. He’s recommended that you stay with Catalina until your treatment is concluded.”
“Sure. Why not. I was staying with her in the last Mindscape, wasn’t I? This will just be more of the same.”
“I’m glad you approve. She’s waiting for you on the surface. I am sorry that your transition has been so difficult.”
Alexander nodded and turned to leave the doctor’s office. The two women who’d escorted him there followed him out and up the elevator from sub-level seventy-five all the way up to the ground floor of the habitat.
As promised, Catalina was waiting in the lobby for him. A few other people were there, busy reuniting with their loved ones after their time in the Mindscape.
“Hello, Alex,” Catalina said, smiling wanly as he approached.
“How do I know that you’re real?” he asked as he stopped in front of her.
Her smile faltered and her gaze flicked between the two androids escorting him. “He’s all yours,” one of them said, and then both of them departed, going back the way they’d come.
Catalina turned her attention to Alexander. “This didn’t go exactly the way I’d hoped. They cured you of one ailment by giving you another.”
“You can’t answer me, can you?” Alexander said, smiling smugly.
“I’ll answer you, if you can answer me. Why would Ben keep us in a Mindscape, Alex?”
“To keep us out of trouble. To keep the real world for him and his androids. He doesn’t need to waste Earth’s resources catering to human needs if we’re all relegated to life support tanks.”
“Let’s take that logic to its ultimate conclusion. Why not just kill us then? Why keep us in tanks at all? We’re still a waste of resources while we’re in the Mindscape. Maybe even a bigger waste. Do you have any idea how much computational power it takes to simulate convincing artificial worlds? It would be cheaper and easier to keep us alive in the real world.”
Alexander frowned. “Maybe we’d cause too much trouble in the real world.”
“You mean go around killing each other and starting wars?” Catalina shook her head. “Benevolence is in charge now. War isn’t even an option. And as for crime, there’s drones and cameras everywhere. There isn’t enough privacy for crime to be an issue.”
“How do you know that? You just woke up, like me.”
“Look up.”
Alexander did, and he noticed small, disc-shaped drones watching him from the ceiling with their bulbous 3D cameras. They looked sleeker than old models he remembered from a century ago, and they had suspicious, barrel-shaped protrusions fore and aft that looked like they might be weapons.
Alexander nodded slowly. “Big brother is watching us.”
“More like Big Ben,” Catalina said.
“So what you’re saying is that it would be inefficient for Ben to keep us all in a virtual world, because it’s easier to control us in the real one.”
“I wouldn’t put it in such negative terms, but yes.”
Alexander felt a headache coming on, but on the heels of that was a feeling of…
Relief. Everything Catalina was saying made a whole lot of sense. “So why did he keep us in the Mindscape for a hundred years?”
Catalina walked up to him and spent a moment searching his eyes with hers. “Have you ever stopped to think that maybe that’s what it took to help you?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Why else would he keep us in there?”
“Maybe because we would have destabilized things before he could solidify his government. You were a Human League Senator. I was a dissident admiral with the fleet… you do the math.”
“You’re talking about the correctional Mindscape. We both spent a few months in there, not a hundred years.”
“You sure about that?” Alexander asked. “I remember waking up and being treated for depression… then consenting to go back into the Mindscape for therapy, but what if that was all a lie? What if we never woke up?”
“It’s possible, but you’re assuming that Ben was scared of the two of us. I think that’s attributing more importance to us than we deserve.”
“Not if we were two out of millions of others who received the same treatment.”
“So why lie about it? It’s no secret that all the dissenters went into a correctional Mindscape for a time.”
“That’s pretty easy to accept when it’s just a few months. A hundred years on the other hand… that would probably just make us even more rebellious. He might have had to cushion the blow by making us believe for one reason or another that we voluntarily chose to be in the Mindscape for that long.”
“I can’t answer all of your doubts, Alexander, but I think the proof will become self-evident as we see what life is like in this new world, don’t you? Ben’s either made things better or he’s made them worse.”
“Yeah…”
“We should go.”
“Where?”
“Well, I was thinking of going house-hunting. Maybe you’d like to join me for that?”
“All right. Why not. Anything’s better than sticking around here,” he replied, glancing up at the drones clinging to the lobby ceiling.
Chapter 42
Dorian Gray smiled as he stroked his daughter’s hair. She lay fast asleep on his chest, taking her afternoon nap on the balcony with her parents. Andy had a busy day yesterday with her birthday party; she was still catching up on her sleep.
Already four years old, Dorian thought, shaking his head. How did you get so big so fast?
Phoenix leaned over to kiss Andy on the forehead. She shot him a conspiratorial smile as she withdrew. “Pity we can’t take a nap ourselves,” she whispered.
Dorian smiled back. A nap—what a nice euphemism for busy parents. But there was no way to extricate himself from Andy without also waking her. “Oh well,” he sighed. “Nice view today,” he whispered back, trying to distract himself from his wife’s proposition.
Phoenix turned to look, and he joined her. The ocean looked like wrinkled blue velvet, the sky so clear and blue it might have been made of glass. The air was still, as if the whole world had stopped to appreciate its own beauty.
“We live a charmed life,” Phoenix said.
“Yes, we do,” Dorian nodded. They were the lucky ones. Duly employed by Mindsoft, living the good life in an oceanfront condo in Clearwater, Florida. They were virtual commuters, making good money and living anywhere they liked. For them the Mindscape was how they made their living, not where they lived their lives.
Dorian was about to ask if Phoenix could bring them each a glass of wine when a bright flash of light wiped out the sky. Dorian shut his eyes instantly, but th
e light stabbed his eyes painfully all the same. Phoenix cried out and Andy woke up, stirring in his lap and moaning about her eyes. Dorian blinked rapidly to clear his vision. But the blinding column of light remained. At first he feared that flash of light had somehow damaged his eyes and this was the result. But that didn’t make any sense.
“What is that?” Phoenix asked, standing from the bench where they sat and walking up to the railing. A wave of heat hit them and Dorian winced as his skin began to tingle and itch.
“Ouch!” Andy complained.
“It’s okay,” Dorian said. He dropped a kiss on his daughter’s head and got up from the bench to stand beside his wife.
The city’s sirens began wailing. The last time they’d heard those had been when Hurricane Ben came into the gulf and threatened Clearwater.
But it wasn’t hurricane season.
“Oh no…” Phoenix said.
“What?” Dorian noticed her eyes were dancing with light from her ARC lenses. They’d had their augmented reality lenses and comm bands turned off so they could spend time as a family. Now Phoenix had obviously plugged back in so she could find out what was going on. “What is it?” Dorian pressed.
“We need to get out of here!”
Dorian grabbed his wife by her shoulders and turned her to face him. “Phoenix! Talk to me!” By now the column of light in the sky had faded to a dim glow, but there was a much brighter radiance blooming below it, like the sun rising.
Except the sun was already high in the sky.
“Turn your ARCs on!” Phoenix said. “It’s all over the net!”
“What is?” he demanded. Then he turned on his ARCs and saw for himself. Missiles fired at Earth at relativistic speeds. One of them got through and landed in the Gulf of Mexico.
“Dorian… we have to get out of here before—”
A deep rumbling started. It shook the entire building and shivered through Dorian’s bones. Behind them Andy screamed. Both he and Phoenix rushed to her side. Dorian swooped her up and ran back inside on trembling legs.
Paintings danced a jig on the walls. Dishes rattled in the cupboards and the sink.
“It’s an earthquake!” Dorian yelled to be heard above the noise.
“The stairs!” Phoenix shouted.
They ran to the front door and out into the hallway. They made it halfway down the first flight of stairs in the stairwell before the rumbling stopped.
A couple ran down past them, the woman screaming all the way down, her partner yelling for her not to trip.
Dorian paused. His heart pounded. Andy squirmed in his arms.
“It’s stopped…” Phoenix breathed, casting him a wide-eyed look. “We should keep going. Take our hover car and get as far away as we can.”
Dorian shook his head. “We don’t have long before the shock wave hits. We’ll be safer inside than in the air.”
“Not when the tsunami reaches us,” Phoenix said.
“This is Florida. Even if we run, there’s no high ground for us to get to. Nowhere nearly as high as this. The wave won’t be big enough to knock down a structure this size.” Their building was thirty floors high, and it had a wide base. “The lower levels might get flooded, but not ours,” he insisted.
Phoenix nodded reluctantly, and they went back up the stairs.
“What are we gonna to do?” Andy asked with a trembling lip as he carried her back inside.
Dorian gave her a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. We’ll be safe in here.” Their condo was on the 25th floor.
He carried Andy through the living room and into the hallway leading to their bedrooms. He set her down on the floor, and turned to see his wife shutting the hallway door behind them.
“Are you sure about this, Dorian?” she asked.
He nodded decisively. “The Earthquake is over. It’s the only thing that could touch us in here, and it failed. Now we just have to stay away from the windows until the shock wave passes us.”
Dorian sat on the floor beside his daughter. Gazing up at Phoenix he patted the space beside them. “Come, sit,” he said.
She abandoned the hallway door with a frown and sat on the floor with them.
“I’m scared,” Andy said.
Dorian wrapped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed her tight. “Don’t be.” Meanwhile, he watched the latest news updates on his ARCs. A local news anchor advised people get to higher ground and stick to land evacuation routes because of the shock wave and high winds. That made him feel better about his decision to stay. How much higher could they get than 25 floors up?
After a few minutes of watching the news and comforting Andy, a deafening BOOM! sounded, followed by shattering glass. Then something hit the hallway door with a BANG!
Andy and Phoenix screamed.
Dorian eyed the door. It didn’t fly open, and the sudden noise was gone, replaced by a whistling sound. Wind.
The hallway door rattled in its frame with each gust. Dorian stood up slowly and crept toward the door. His heart thudded in his chest and his limbs trembled with spent adrenaline. His eyes felt like they might pop out of his head.
“What are you doing?” Phoenix cried. “Get back here!”
“That was the shock wave. It should be safe to come out now.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Don’t you want to see what’s happening out there?”
“No!”
“Well, I do,” he replied and opened the door.
The living room was a mess. The sliding glass doors leading to the balcony had been blown inward. Jagged glass glittered like jigsaw pieces on the floor. A towering wall of black clouds had blotted out the horizon.
A storm was coming.
Dorian walked up to balcony, and a wet, salty breeze blasted his face as he approached. Glass crunched under his moccasin slippers. He reached the balcony’s aluminum railing and leaned heavily on it, wondering who had just attacked Earth, and why. Whoever it was had to be responsible for the attack on Lunar City, too.
“Dorian? Is everything okay?” Phoenix called out in a trembling voice.
“It’s okay. We’re safe now.”
Half an hour later, they were still picking up jagged chunks of glass from the living room floor. Andy sat under a blanket on the couch furthest from the mess, hugging her shoulders and watching them with wide blue eyes.
Dorian walked over to his wife with a chunk of glass and dropped it in the box she was holding. He was about to go collect another piece when he noticed her staring fixedly out the broken doors to the horizon. Dorian followed her gaze and saw a dark ripple on the water, racing toward them at an impossible speed.
“Shit. Here it comes,” Dorian said, already striding out onto the balcony to watch.
“Dorian! Get back here!” Phoenix screamed.
“Relax! It’s tiny,” he said. “Look.”
“Mommy!” Andy wailed.
“It’s all right, sweetheart. Shhh. There, it’s all right. It’ll be over soon.”
Dorian frowned at the approaching wave as he reached the balcony railing. It was getting bigger—fast. A split second later it was a black wall of water towering over the thin golden bar of sand between them and the ocean. That wave had to be at least 20 stories high. It curled at the top like a claw reaching out for him, and Dorian’s heart froze in his chest.
How high would that water splash up when it crashed?
Phoenix and Andy screamed as the wave wrapped itself around their building and roared up the face of it, splashing over the balcony.
Dorian turned to tell them to run, but the water scooped him up and threw him back inside. It sucked him under in an instant, and then it smashed his head against something solid and darkness engulfed him.
* * *
Dorian awoke with a gasp to find himself in a featureless white room. His memories came back to him in streaks, like colorful streamers fluttering through his brain. Awareness warred with confusion.
“Where are
they?” he demanded of the void.
“Where is who?” a kindly voice replied. That voice was familiar.
“Where is my family!” Dorian screamed, still riding high on adrenaline from the disaster he’d lived through. Was this Heaven?
“Your wife is alive and well.”
“What about Andy?”
“Andy? I’m sorry, Dorian, she’s dead.”
“What?” he shook his head, unable to accept that. Definitely not Heaven. “She was with us a second ago! If we’re alive, then so is…”
Awareness finally won the battle, and Dorian remembered. He collapsed on the featureless floor, sobbing. “No…” he croaked.
“Andy was not your daughter, Dorian. She and her parents all died in that condo in Clearwater. Thanks to you.”
“No!” Dorian screamed. “You’re lying!”
“You know that I am not. By now you are feeling some small piece of the pain that you caused. Fifty million people like Andy and her parents died because of what you, Phoenix, and Orochi Sakamoto did.”
“It’s not true! You made it all up! Give me back my daughter!”
“Fighting the truth is counter-productive to your rehabilitation, Dorian.”
“You’re a monster!” he screamed, his eyes blurry with tears. “How could you let me go through that! You’re no better than I am!”
“Of course I am. I put you through a simulated tragedy to help you see that what you did was wrong. The corresponding tragedy that you put others through was real.”
“I’ll kill you! I swear it! If it’s the last thing I do!”
“I’m sorry to hear you say that. Perhaps your next parole hearing will go better.”
Dorian froze, a suspicion forming in his gut. “What? Wait!” He’d played this the wrong way, allowed his confusion and emotions to get in the way.
Andy wasn’t real. Those four years he’d spent watching her grow up had all been leading up to this. Ben had given him a chance for attachment to set in before ripping it all away. Dorian could see how that might seem like justice, how it might prompt a change of heart, but all he could feel was his own pain. Right on the heels of that was betrayal and confusion. The memories were so real. It all felt so real! Four years spent living and believing a lie. Ben had played him for a fool, hoping it would rehabilitate him.
New Frontiers- The Complete Series Page 64