by A A Woods
“There’s a high-security prisoner in the lower labs. Third door from the elevator. I’ve never been allowed in, but before I left, I managed to get close enough to know it’s someone dangerous. Someone they’ve kept hidden for months. Six months, actually.” There’s a heavy pause, swollen with meaning. “Here,” she presses something into my hand. A PAP. “Most of the building’s codes are on there. Should get you close enough to hack your way through.”
I can almost feel her excitement, the heat of mischief in her eyes. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to let the fox out of its cage.”
“Be careful,” I whisper.
“I always am,” she whispers back.
I want to laugh but the sound is caught in my throat. She’s leaning in, her lips brushing my cheek.
“I’m glad to see you again, Tora.”
My words fail to come, caught up in the tangle of my strange life and our stranger connection and all the secrets that have wrapped themselves around us and pulled us together. I try to breathe, prepare an answer.
But something has changed in the ballroom.
Shoes click past us with clipped urgency. A polite voice mutters something close by and there’s a silence. A stillness, broken only by Yasmin’s speech as it marches stubbornly on. Khali releases my arm. I lift my head. My ears strain to make out the words.
And then a shrill voice cuts through the speech and I don’t have to strain anymore.
“Excuse me, Miss Abergel,” Maria Sargova says from the middle of the ballroom. “I’ve just received an urgent message from my driver. Are you aware that your company is on the news?”
I feel Khali’s gaze on me and I can’t hold back my curiosity. My apprehension. With shaking fingers, I plug into her handheld, keeping it hidden in my palm. I scroll through the channels until I find the Over Eye.
There, right at the top, a story is breaking, the number of tuners scrolling up so fast it looks like a blur.
Memory released by missing Project Recollection prodigy, Zhu Sidana. Authorities investigating potentially illegal research conducted by C.E.O. Yasmin Abergel as police prepare to act.
My breath comes out in a whoosh and I sag, barely catching myself on Khali’s shoulder. The picture attached to the story is a memory, my memory, the one Zhu embedded in my cable, the breadcrumb he left in my brain.
The one I gave my father.
Tears threaten to collapse the architecture of my mascara.
Looks like my dad finally came through.
Memory File of Yasmin Abergel
C.E.O. of Project Recollection
Time Stamp: Saturday, September 22nd, 2195
9:53 P.M. EST
You’re crashing into a high-story office like a cannonball, a barrel-chested man in a tuxedo close on your heels.
“How did Arun Sidana get that memory?” you snap before the door is even finished hissing shut.
“I don’t know, ma’am,” the man stammers, holding his hands up as you pace in front of the window, the city lights spread out below you like a winking carpet. “But I already have a team working to take it down. We should be able to contain the public’s reaction.”
You’re not listening. You’re pacing, heels digging into the soft carpet, breath sharp and stabbing. “Are you sure there’s no breech of the prisoner’s cell? He didn’t contact anyone outside?”
“Not to our knowledge, but he has outsmarted our system before. The fact that he’s held out this long under interrogation speaks for itself.”
“But how did he share a memory he didn’t even have?”
Your voice slips into a growl.
The man takes a step back. “What about his sister? The one we’ve been chasing?”
You stop. “She’s not in touch with her father.”
“Arun Sidana doesn’t have a cable anymore. There’s no way to verify that.”
You’re frozen, every muscle in your body pulled taut.
“The missing memory…” you whisper.
“Excuse me?”
“The memory Zhu removed from himself. He could have put it in his sister’s cable as he worked on it. She must have found it…” you reach one hand up, run your fingernails along the glass, “and given it to her father.”
“Ma’am, what do you want me to do? The board wants an immediate update and our guests—”
“Damn the board.”
“What?”
You whirl back on the cowering man in a pressed suit, clenching your fists. “Damn the board and damn our guests.”
“But ma’am…”
“There’s only one way.” Your words are soft, your voice soothing. As if you’re trying to talk yourself into something. “They’ll shut down the Ankh Program by tomorrow. Shut me down. Those cowards won’t take the fall for this. I need to act fast….”
“Miss Abergel, what—”
“I’m going down to the labs,” you snap. “Find my daughter and send her to meet me. Make sure no one else follows.”
“But the gala—?”
“Keep them busy. I won’t be long.”
You sweep past him, side-stepping around his muscled frame to the wall, to the sleek doors embedded in the side of your office.
“It’s the only way,” you say to yourself, fervent as a prayer. “The only way.”
The doors open to your thumbprint. Stepping into the private elevator, you plug yourself in. The red rim around your IRIS cable turns green and you punch the lowest button.
Listening to the hum of machinery, you stand perfectly still as the elevator carries you into the intestines of the world.
Tora
Saturday, September 22nd, 2195
9:55 P.M. EST
The ballroom is devolving.
As news spreads, the constellation of polite mutters turns hard and angry and demanding. Plugged into Khali’s PAP, the opulent space blooming before me, I watch the well-dressed, gray-haired people spooking like frightened sheep even as the wait staff frantically tries to regain control.
It’s exactly what I need.
I turn the PAP to Khali, resplendent beside me in an emerald green gown with a slit up one leg, revealing dagger-sharp black pumps. Her IRIS cable is wound through her braided hair like a colorful crown. She stands tall and regal, eyes driving into the wall behind the raised stage, a stage I assume held her mother only moments before.
“She ran.”
“What?” I ask.
Khali shakes her head. “My mother. She disappeared at the first sign of trouble.” Her lips quirk in a bitter half-smile. “I’m glad cowardice isn’t genetic.”
I want to flinch away from the words, but I can’t. They resonate in me like a rung bell. I reach out, twine my free hand into hers. Wordlessly, I try to convey sympathy.
I know too well how it feels to have a mother who runs away.
“I need to go,” I whisper as an ancient bent-over heiress swats a waiter, threatening to summon Nova police if she’s not escorted to her private helicopter at once.
Khali tears her eyes away from the stage. They flick first to my face and then to her PAP in my hands and I feel their full force, drilling into me, pinning me to the marble floor.
Finally, she jerks her head in a single nod. “Find your brother. I’ll take care of Kitzima.”
My heart thrums and my veins are live wires as I force myself to take her hand, bring it to my lips. Her PAP sits nestled between our gloved palms.
It’s a small gesture of vulnerability, but it’s the most I have to offer.
I feel Khali’s breath as she leans in, shifting the air molecules between us in that infinite, crackling way. The darkness around me is a sweet salve, a blessing even, as I focus on her smell, on us.
“Time to cause some mayhem,” Khali says at last, her laughter warm on my cheeks.
I release her hand, step back, tilt my PAP to look at her one last time. “Give ‘em hell.”
She tears her IRIS cable from the
intricate layers of her hair.
“It’s my specialty,” she says as thick brown cascades around her cheeks in elegant, haphazard waves. She grins, leans in to kiss me once on the cheek, and disappears, her lips leaving a burning imprint.
“Be safe,” I whisper, the words swirling through the chaos like ashes on the wind.
Memory File of Jonah Simmons
Gamer Name Kujaku
Time Stamp: Saturday, September 22nd, 2195
10:07 P.M. EST
Your pulse is so strong it feels like it should be echoing off the walls in this narrow, pitch-black cell. Your fists ache from banging on the door. Your throat is raw from screaming for someone to come and get you, to let you out. But beyond your panic there’s only silence. Stillness. A tight and lonely darkness filled by your rasping, terrified breath.
Sagging against the wall, your body is a storm of adrenaline and resignation. How long have you been here? Days? Months? Compressed by the solid emptiness like something fossilized and forgotten, you wait for a flicker of light, a break of noise.
Nothing comes.
You raise your fist and bang on the door again. “Let me out!”
The exhausted scrape of your voice is hoarse with madness. Tears prickle your eyes and you scrub them away, spinning in a circle.
Suddenly, mercifully, there’s a noise. A grating squeak. A sliver of light appears, growing wider. The door, finally heeding your prayer, lets the world rush back in. Relief floods your body as you throw yourself into the light without hesitation.
For a moment, the brightness is blinding.
You blink.
Bit by bit, a glassy hallway materializes around you, crowded with other Gamers, the bright banding on their cables appearing before their washed-out faces. As your eyelids flutter, still adjusting to the glare of solar light on shimmering chrome walls, you see your rescuer already moving away from you, opening the cell next to yours. She’s beautiful, tall and narrow in a fitted emerald dress, moving with the grace of a dancer despite the stretching, pointed heels of her shoes.
“Khali!”
She spins, eyes wide. “Jonah?”
But you’re already throwing your arms around her, clawing at the green fabric of her dress. She’s laughing and you’re crying and it’s as if something warm and bright has slotted back into place in your chest.
“I thought no one would come for me,” you say through sobs of relief.
“What’s going on?” demands a tall, broad-shouldered girl with freckles, taking a threatening step toward you. Your eyebrows pull together, as if you recognize her. “What happened to the tournament?”
The person in your arms pulls back, disentangles herself, and meets your gaze with serious eyes. Her fingers squeeze your shoulder and then she’s moving away, opening other doors, freeing other captives.
“There is no tournament.” She throws the words over her shoulder as she clicks down the hallway. “It was a trap.”
A short, purple-haired Gamer steps out of the cell across from your prison, cracking her neck and stretching sharp fingers.
The one called Khali continues, “I’m here to help you escape.”
There’s a murmuring rustle among the teenagers, an exchange of resigned, browbeaten looks.
One person doesn’t seem bothered by this news.
“Thanks for the offer,” says the one with purple hair. “But no thanks.”
Khali pauses, lips pursed. “Don’t be ridiculous. You need to get out of here.”
“On the contrary, Anubis. I have no intention of going anywhere.”
The girl, your friend, glowers down at the much shorter Gamer. Bodies crowd the hallway—a few, like you, wearing dirty and panicked expressions from hours spent in darkness. But not all of them. A split is already forming. The fearful edge away from the others, young women with sharp teeth and elaborate make-up accreting around the shortest of the group.
Your friend steps in front of you, facing the smirking creature. “Kitzima, the guards will be swarming this floor any minute to clean up evidence. Including you.”
Kitzima only grins.
Goosebumps pop out on your arms. You step back.
“I guess we should work fast.” Kitzima lifts one hand. “Come on ladies, you know what to do.”
Throwing one last sneer over her shoulder, this strange, tiny monster turns away, followed by her friends. Like a fleet of devils, they disappear down the hall, and as they turn a corner you hear the bright tune of a whistle left like a warning in their wake.
Tora
Saturday, September 22nd, 2195
10:13 P.M. EST
“No!”
I growl in frustration as the elevator jerks to a stop on the ground floor, resolutely refusing to go lower. I’m plugged in, using the codes from Khali’s PAP, but it’s no use. The building is locked down, the lower stories guarded by firewalls even I can’t side-step.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I chant, my pulse ragged and frayed as I squint through the cameras on the other side of the door. ProRec security is gathering like swarms of mosquitos, clumping in the corners of the ethereal lobby, facing the enormous glass walls. Through the building’s system, I glimpse a thick knot of civilians hammering on the windows, pressed against the doors, words muffled but intention clear.
The closest face is a Purist spokesperson, features twisted in rage.
I wonder if ProRec knew about this building undercurrent, the bottled backlash waiting to pop. They’ll subdue it by tomorrow, stamp it out like a campfire. In a few hours, the memory my father shared will be shunted to the SubNet, visible only to those willing to risk their brains to watch. But it’ll spread. The knowledge of this night won’t disappear.
Those people outside will make sure of that.
I tear my digital gaze away from the small mob growing angrier by the second and scroll through the super-scraper’s blueprints, looking for another way down. The lobby rises before my mind’s eye, a three-dimensional version of the central space materializing in front of me. I turn it over, examine it from every angle.
Damn, I think as a solution formulates in my head.
It’s terrifying and risky and stupid and all kinds of brash. Just the kind of thing Khali would do.
Her words echo back to me.
You’re a fighter. A hero.
I take a deep, steadying breath.
Stretching through the middle of the ProRec lobby is an enormous model of a neuron, solid iron twined with wires, spreading like a fan into the lower floors. Four full stories, to be precise. It’s a world-famous work of art that has drawn tourists and critics for years.
After all, Liling Sidana’s talent was a thing of renown before her son disappeared.
My throat convulses as I swallow, plotting out my route. Twenty-seven steps to the railing around the gigantic hole in the floor. Approximately a seven-foot leap to the nearest swoop of molded metal. A dangerous climb—or slide—to the lower stories where I hope I can gain access to the blacked-out floor in the basement, right above where the Gamers were admitted. The security forces will be on my heels the whole treacherous climb. I have no weapons. No defense except Kahli’s PAP and my wits and adrenaline.
But I’ve escaped ProRec’s clutches for six months.
I can do it for another six minutes.
I reach back and unclasp the neck of Kitzima’s dress. The silk and lace slide off my shoulders, puddle at my feet. I step out of the ring of finery in my black tank top and leggings, kick off the shoes with a sigh of relief. Tearing the gloves off with my teeth, I feel the fine silk snag on the bandages taped around my palms. Bouncing my knees and swinging my arms, I gather the fraying edges of myself into a rope of courage.
For Zhu, I think, but it’s more than that. Because someone else’s face comes to mind, another lonely Gamer with a penchant for recklessness. Another reason to fight.
I smile.
I hope you’re watching, Khali.
With a flicker of
thought, I run a cascade that will force the elevator doors open. I yank my IRIS free and slide it into the tiny, newest-model PAP. Khali’s handheld. Wrapping the cable around my head, I tangle the PAP into my bun, praying it will stay put and give me some semblance of vision.
Too soon, the doors slide apart.
As if drawn by a magnet, the guards turn as one toward the elevator. But I’m already moving, my vision bouncing with the dizzying beat of my steps. I sprint, arms pumping, bare feet slapping against stone.
“Hey!”
There’s a footstep, the mechanical shift of a weapon.
But they’re too late.
I’m already airborne.
Launching myself off the low railing that runs around my mother’s art, I sail through the open space in the middle of the lobby, limbs flung wide. My hair shifts and my PAP disentangles, banging against my spine. For an infinite moment, I’m flying through nothing. All I can see is the ceiling. I have no idea where the emptiness stops and the sculpture begins.
And then I crash into solid metal.
My breath abandons me as sharp dendrite branches dig into my belly. My fingers scrabble for something, anything to grab onto. I slip, slide over burnished iron. Catch. Hold.
My feet are dangling in darkness and for once I’m grateful I can’t see how far away the ground is.
“…the hell?”
“Stop her!”
Boots are thundering around me, but I’m already climbing down. My bare feet slide over smooth metal, my sore hands finding little purchase on the web-like cell body of the stretching neuron. Without warning, the sculpture shudders and shifts. A breathless scream escapes me as I’m thrown from one branch and barely manage to grasp another.
“Come back here!”
They’re above me. Through the swinging PAP, I glimpse heavy combat boots. Large bodies strain the delicate edges of the sculpture. With one hand, I guide my PAP around, flick it down.