Not dead. Eyes open, and there’s smoke and chunks of metal and plastic, white material from the airbags, the foam inside them already drying up, causing the powder left in it’s wake to give thier surface a faint glow in the blinking red crash lights. There is an automated message playing on a cracked screen informing me that the crash is indeed over, and to exit the vehicle and seek medical attention. Oh and don’t forget to have a pleasant day and thank you for using Circa inc for all your commuting needs.
Memories, triggered by the smell of electrical fire, the pain radiating from my head and limbs, by the feeling of being buried in rubble. Somehow the past was playing catch up with me. The accident that took me out of commission couldn’t be the source, there was no memory from that, as it was explained to me it happened so fast and was so violent that I was immediately incapacitated and unconscious. Maybe a mine, bomb, grenade, betrayal, crash. No, this memory was much older, from something deep in the past, and the pain normally associated with recalling anything from anything from that far back was momentarily less horrific then the current head trauma I seem to have suffered. I was buried alive at one point. There was a city, I vaguely remember. Hands, frail and with chipped nail polish on them start digging and I’m crying. Then the memory fades, the pain overwhelms the forces of my concussion’s. Usually if something triggers an old memory; say, a smell, a moment, a voice of a turn of phrase someone uses around me, I get the sensation that my head is just full of those little white and black waring dots from white noise, all of them trying to kill their way through each other and out my ears. Like a loud electrical buzzing that rumble across gray matter like thunder. So I push those feelings down, I forget the moment, avoid it if I can and go about my normal routine. Smile, wave, talk to the reporter, lie a little, lie a lot, who cares, what’s it matter, do it and don’t ask questions and get your pay and go home.
With a tremendous struggle I turn enough to look out the slot window, between a piece of concrete and some cables and glass the sky is burning in the background. Like an apocalypse, a personal one, because nothing is a cliché when it’s happening to you. The sky was burning, the smog and clouds glowing in hues of orange and red that seem to rumble and pulse with their own hidden life. My home was up there, old books, old tech that I had collected. The sitting room where leaders met with me to take pictures and shake my hand and smile then berate me and criticize me when the cameras were off. A grim smile begins to worm it’s way across my face, with the knowledge that at least that part of my life is over. This is what you could call, my pink slip. Termination papers. Write-up. In every sense of the word, I was irrevocably fired.
My hand probes my head and my other arm, which I can barely move. There is a piece of plastic stuck deep in it, which I pull out. Not smart. Bleeding, but looking at the plastic shard, I daydream, momentarily, probably due to the dizziness and the pain. Everything fades out again, getting distant. The plastic shard looks giant, in that far off kind of way. Like viewing the top of a distant mountain as it rises beyond the horizon. Then there is a noise, digging. The old memory starts to force it’s way back to the surface of my mind, but I shut it down before the pain does it for me. The door slides open. Some stuff falls in, but from my vantage point, it looks only like the sky is falling down. I’m in the distance, fading, and then there’s a face up to mine then hands digging away at my legs, the metal bends, like the hands of an ancient god. Huge, far off. There’s a sound, it’s like a voice, it’s calling and telling me that I don’t want to give in, not yet. It says that I haven’t found out anything. That I can’t die before I know who I am. Before those who are responsible pay. The voice snaps me back into reality when it says something that I’ve only said while wandering around my old home talking to myself.
Just to know, I’d do anything.
The voice asks if I remember saying that. If I meant it, and if I did mean it then I’d come with it right now. So did I mean it, was it for real, or do I just want to give up and die here in this place.
“Yes I meant it. No, I don’t want to die here.” I say, with an odd air of calm in light of the situation at hand.
Then a needle, probably more nano. Then there’s foam on my arms and it burns, bio gel fills in the wound. More on my head. More on my legs. Then I’m being pulled out, my vision still a blur, a faint echo on every sound, a faint buzzing in the air, everything looking as though someone has over saturated the hues. There’s a Cicada, armored vehicle. Uses rails sometimes if it’s been retrofitted, mostly though, it hovers with the aid of a couple of turbine engines. It’s old tech, possibly pre-war military. You don’t see them too often, but some private security companies use them, since all other modes of transit are built with over a dozen different trackers in them from GPS to RFID to WiFi, there’s no way to stay off the grid in a Circa, same with a monorail, or with all the cars and trucks that operate on the ground. I’m limping, and my arm is around a total stranger, who’s helping me inside. A wind sheer picks up for a second, nearly knocking me to the ground, but a strong arm keeps me steady. They don’t even seem affected by the wind. Then I’m inside, a white room, white seats. The Cicada takes off, heading horizontal then downward, taking random pathways in elaborate geometric patterns, obviously designed to throw off anyone trying to trail it.
The blurs start to fade a little. The echos die down. I look up, to an unexpected sight. There is a woman sitting opposite of me. Her face is mature and beautiful. Her eyes are almost electric blue, one adjusts slightly every second or so, most likely bionics. She’s wearing a black jumpsuit, that doesn’t really show off her figure, but from the looks of it she was probably muscular and slim. Her hair is shoulder length and black. Upon closer inspection of her face, one could make out the faint discolorations, bio gel usage. To cover the scars. So many of them.
She speaks in a clear voice, the same voice that tried to warn me. There was no mistaking it. She was probably flagging her voice as being sent through an alteration program when it wasn’t, which was marginally clever. She says to me, “I suppose you want to know who I am and what I want with you?”
My stare speaks for me.
“My name is Serra. I’ve been watching over you a long time. I suppose you could call me, your own personal bodyguard.”
“I haven’t needed a bodyguard till tonight.”
It’s her turn to speak with a stare. It’s almost uncomfortable to sit at the other end of such a look. Then she says, “do you have any idea how many people have tried to kill you? Every little CEO and mobster trying to make a name for himself. Every crazy political and religious fanatic.”
“They weren’t threats, the Commission has seen to that.”
She puts her head in her hands, obviously frustrated. Probably at my ignorance. “You don’t get it do you? The arrangement was for you to be the president long enough to be hated then they’d allow someone to kill you and do away with the government entirely.”
“I’ve been the president for ten years. If they were really trying to kill me don’t you think they would have been successful by this point?”
Another stare, sizing me up maybe. “Besides some minor intervention on my part, perhaps you could chalk it up to simple infighting that has kept them from achieving that goal. It takes some time for a new order to be fully established, you know that. In the off-chance they didn’t get killed by a competitor then I’d have to step in.”
I laugh. “That’s a joke right? What are you a one woman army?”
Said in a flat, serious tone. “Yes.”
This was getting nowhere, I couldn’t believe anyone in the Commission was stupid enough to believe that petty symbolism or my life was worth fretting over. Everyone knew I wasn’t a threat, and that I had no power. Just another lackey on the payroll, going through the motions.
“How’d you find me?”
“Your Circa. You always use the same one. You’re somewhat predicable like that. Just followed your progress remotely.”
“Ten years and you never decided to contact me until now?”
“Didn’t need to.”
… and to get to the real heart of the matter I asked, “what do you want from me?”
“Excuse me?” She seemed somewhat taken aback by the implication that she wouldn’t go through all this trouble for no personal benefit.
“You heard me, what do you want from me?” I made sure to space out the words, say them slowly, say it as mockingly as possible. Ooze sarcasm. Spew passive-aggressive defiance. Being talked to like I was a child, being blown up, being threatened and told all the time what is right and what is wrong and what I should value and what I should say with conviction has slowly built up within a sort of loathing. All it takes is for someone to treat me like I’m a fool and it comes bubbling up to the surface, and after tonight, I don’t think it’s possible to keep things corked. You do the job you’re given, and then when it’s over where are you? Half dead in a pile of wreckage with the few things that give you comfort burning away like some sort of effigy of your life in microcosm.
Through clenched teeth and some anger when the bewildered look on her face remains after I ask it a second time, I say, “Don’t look at me like that. You think I’m stupid? You think I don’t know what’s going on here? You’re probably just going to use me for whatever it is you’re planning. No one helps anyone unless it’s for their own benefit. I don’t know how you’ve been watching me or keeping track for ten years, and frankly, I could give less of a damn right now. Whatever it is you want me for you can forget it, because I’m tired of being used.”
She leans back, and seems to ponder her next words carefully. Finally she says, “I think you are misunderstanding my intentions. I understand where you are coming from but you can trust me.”
“Can I now?” More sarcasm, I’m on a roll tonight. For some reason, my head starts feeling really clear, maybe exhaustion, frustration, and the knowledge for the first time in years I don’t have to worry that someone will hear what I really think. After they figure out that I survived that explosion whoever is responsible will start trying to track me down. It’s not like I have anything to fear anymore. The worst has happened. So the wall came down, the filter was turned off. Staring at this woman who I do no know traveling to god knows where I didn’t see much of a point in holding back what I was thinking anymore. “Who can I trust, really? Nobody! Not a god damn soul in this whole place. Either someone wants to use me in some lame corporate takeover, or they want me to just smile an nod and look stupid for them. Well I’m not stupid, god damn it. I’m not. I know what’s going on out there, people are dying. Everyone’s too damn stupid and miserable and beat down to know better than to just keep their heads down and hope for the best. So they just mill about while the guys in charge proudly rub in their faces how they are doing everything for them and the person who gets to deliver this candy-coated facade to the general public is me. Every day these guys pull me into boardrooms and send me out to press conferences where behind the scenes they tell stories about how they intentionally shut down rail lines in the middle of rush hour traffic for the hell of it, or how they keep people locked up in game worlds that aren’t real because ‘at least they are in line,’ or how they pumped X district with experimental chemicals for ‘public beta testing,’ or how they put radios and control chips and advertisements everywhere so that unless you’re rich you can’t take a shit without getting a dozen different commercials broadcast to everything between you and the toilet including your fucking toothbrush. The worst thing about all that, about being so angry and holding it inside all the time for fear of letting it slip up too much so that they know I don’t believe in any of it, and if given half a chance I’d kill every last one of them, is that I know it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference. I could get on the waves and let everyone know that it’s all been a lie all along, and it’s all fake and I was just hired to lie to them and they wouldn’t care. These people have been lied to so long they don’t even know what the truth is even if it’s staring them right in the face because the truth is irrelevant when you’re more concerned about being laid off or what’s on the screens tonight. If I told them the truth over the waves, I’d be just be like all those suits that boss me around, saying stuff to people because I think they are stupid and need to be told something they are already aware of. No one could live down in the gutter and not know what’s really going on. They see it every day, they live it, and they know it’s not going to change so they just get on with it while those bastards at the top smile and laugh and carry on with their fake little soap opera lives and every time one of them decided to get mad at someone at a cocktail party or decides having so much money you can afford to have your own space station isn’t enough then they unleash a fusillade of suffering on whoever slighted them, and anyone within a mile of wherever their headquarters happens to be. So what’s your angle? Huh?” My speech was getting more difficult, and I couldn’t stop talking, words just spewing out of my mouth like a geyser. The blur around everything, subtle but still there, grows more intense. More words. “You some kinda rebel or something? Some sort of revolutionary that thinks I know something you don’t? Some sort of secret as to why things are so shitty?” I spasticly claw at one of the windows, in an attempt to gesture outside, my arms feeling like they are made of rubber, my eyes getting heavy. The woman just keeps staring at me, with a faint smile I hadn’t noticed before winding it’s way across her lips. “Well take a look out there, just look, that’s how it is. They don’t hide it! They never have! It’s always been about the money, about the power, about having more than you and damn it, it sucks. I know it sucks, but nothing you do will change that. They will always come back, they always come back into history. Every revolution, won’t mean… anything. It just won’t because in the end you’re just replacing one master for another damn it. There’s no point. You hear me it’s pointless.” Oh god just shut me up please, my mouth feels like mush. This is everything, my whole soul, down in it. Excuses for cowardice, attempts to justify playing along. It’s just flowing out, verbal vomit. Answering questions that weren’t even asked. Just yelling. Let it all out, let it all out and maybe you’ll feel better, at least that’s what I keep saying to myself. Too tired to speak now, my words come out as a mumble, a faint mummer of defiance. “After all, we’re just ordinary men.”
My head slumps to the side. She moves in close, I think that this is really it. Just a snap, then the darkness. At least she realized how useless my help really is. So weak, in mind and body and spirit. My help is pretty much worthless in whatever power play she’s planning, at least I don’t have to die by burning alive inside a wrecked Circa. Her hands wrap around my head, and then I feel a softness as she lays my head to rest on a pillow. The bench I was sitting on was not a bench after all, it seems. Then there’s tearing, off goes my clothing. Then a sheet. Then she’s sitting next to me. The sheets feel cool, the bed is actually emitting a mist of regenerative medicine. I feel it, cool and tingling across my skin along with a faint pain that seems to wash over my body every few seconds. The pounding in my chest starts to slow, and I realize that I was getting really worked up when I was talking. While I was speaking I didn’t notice, probably just got too wound up and wore myself out. Not really sleepy. A gentle bump every few seconds, as we move along ever downward, in chaotic patterns no doubt. Merging in and out of traffic. Changing vehicle Ids on the fly, covering tracks.
The blur stars to fade away again, just strained myself after all. Serra doesn’t look at me, but she starts talking. “Now that you got that out, you feel any better?”
I try to say, a little bit, but it comes out as a faint murmur.
“This isn’t about me.” She says. Then after a long pause. “Well, that’s sort of a lie. So I apologize. If I start lying to you then you’ll never be able trust me, no matter how small. This thing we’re about to do, you must understand, is between us as them. You see, it’s about justice. It’s about the past. Your past specifically. It’s about a fulfilling a personal desire of mine. I’ve been keeping you safe, watching you from a distance for all these years. You may be wondering why I have never contacted you.”
She looks at me, as if expecting a response, then continues anyway. “Well, I wasn’t sure if you wanted to be disturbed. The only thing I can offer you is knowledge, and if you didn’t want that knowledge or didn’t care, who was I to disrupt your life? Over the past few months, you’ve been getting more depressed, more withdrawn, more defiant of the arrangement. That look you make in the mirror in the morning. The way you wander around and talk to yourself. The one thing that really showed me that the time was coming for me to show myself to you was when you started contacting Seifer for a little off the record chitchat, work him for some information you were curious about. Your memory starts to leak back little by little, but when you recall it there’s a pain. I know all about it, I see you cringe when you get too deep in thought. I see you read and watch garbage on the damn screens trying to distract yourself, but the pains are getting more frequent. So you think that this cop will suddenly help you, but he won’t. Seifer is a very dangerous man, and you may find some of that out firsthand. The information he gave you came at a price, which you have paid for tonight. He was using you, seeing what your intentions were, and when you went out of the internet, I suppose he decided that would be a great time to strike against the entire government district. The whole reason he told you to look there was merely to see if you were willing to do whatever it took to find out your past. There are secrets locked away in your head which are dangerous, especially to you.”
Her hand is on my cheek, it’s warm. Then her face is inches from mine. She stares into my eyes, tilts her head this way, then that. “We don’t have much time to get to know each other. As of this moment you’ve got no money. Nowhere to go. No options other than to press forward. You said you wanted to know the truth about yourself, no matter what. I suppose I can understand why, after all to live with feelings, emotions and a sense of right and wrong that you can’t reconcile with the past… how difficult that must be! Every thought you second guess. Every action you take is filled with uncertainty and awkwardness. You think I don’t understand, but I’ve seen you. I’ve watched for ten years while you’ve tormented yourself and struggled to come to one conclusion, that even if it kills you… you must know the truth.”
‘The truth; however, may not be to your liking. Still, that desire to know who you are and where you came from must be strong. So strong you were willing to consort with bastards like Seifer, probably knowing that whatever he told you wasn’t the truth. The thing is, Seifer has had that information you went looking for on the government servers for months, years probably. He wasn’t as fast as me though, I’ve known about it for much longer.” Then she smiles, wide and toothy. “Would you like to see it?”
A nod, that’s about all I can muster. Even though I lay prone, I have the feeling that I could just about any second leap up in adulation for this breakthrough.
She gets up, and hits a few buttons on the wall, the room dims and a series of documents appears in the center, glowing like fireflies. As my eyes adjust to the change in lighting I notice that there are millions of them, and so small, almost invisible to my eyes. It’s like the universe, stars and clusters rotate around in a diorama. The sun glows bright in the center. Each type of document is given it’s own solar system. It’s own black hole, which functions as a trash can. Comets fly-by and begin to orbit stars, probably incoming messages and information. It was a unique internet, a totally redesigned interface from the ground up. Full of imagination and life. Everything flowing and moving, perfectly organized, perfectly precise. She waves a hand, and it closes in, one cluster taking up the center of the room. With another gesture it zooms inward on another series of files. Then another. The starts getting closer, bigger, more detailed. Then there’s a replica of our solar system sitting in front of it. Then sun says ‘Adamus.’ Mercury says ‘Old Documents.’ Venus says, ‘Current Ops.’ Then it zooms in on earth in one fluid motion. The actual globe made of thousands of files, color coded to look like the surface. Then it zooms in on the east coast of North America, then on the city. On Liberty, which consists of a few files. Of these she takes one and grabs it, then comes to sit next to me. With one arm behind my back she props me up, and places the file in front of me. For some reason, knowing that this is an important truth, I become scared and I don’t know why. Sensing this, she holds my hand. Then says, “go ahead, you don’t have to face this alone anymore.”
Deep breaths.
Here goes.
Project Date: ####CORRUPTED
Project Serial: 2549893- 62382-NT60
Project Team Members: Segrias Demer; John Wools, Anne Ling, thirty undisclosed former government lab scientists.
Initial Project Goals: To create a system utilizing nanotechnology that can manipulate memories in order to render solders that are captured in deep cover operations unable to recall any mission details or objectives. Also for use on plants and agents operating abroad so that they do not let their cover slip.
Secondary Project Goals: In addition to blocking memories, this system may be used to take over the memory centers of the brain in order to give someone false memories or even drastically change their personality in order to reassign them to new positions that require their termination without having to waste useful manpower.
Results of Initial Research: What follows is a list of various lab data, and test information. The end of the file, some ten pages later is noted: All tests so far have proven highly successful and this new technology can be utilized with minimal risk of detection by the implanted. Note, that after a large enough timescale without having the agent re-introduced into the implanted via normal means, the nanotech’s natural half-life will start to break down causing lapses in performance and residual headaches, eventually leading to crippling pain or insanity till the implanted expires. New models with a longer half-life and improved performance over extended periods of time are currently being researched, but those tests, I am afraid to report, are not nearly as successful.
She takes it from me and tosses it into a black hole. “You signed three forms when you left, all three contradict each other. In the instance you became curious these three were basically meant to keep you in the dark if you ever decided to inquire about your past. I suspect you know about this tech’s first application, covert ops memory lock, but you probably didn’t know about the second part. Well, that’s what I’d like to talk to you about.” She lets go of my hand, makes stop gesture, and the universe disappears. The lights brighten. “When your tamper with any nano that affects the brain it has a tendency have have some residual side effects. Which, is what we’re going to be doing. The only way to find out what your mind has locked away in it that would have Seifer interested in finally closing the arrangement you had with the Commission must be something very important. You want to know the past, I want to help you find it. Partially out of curiosity and partially to protect you while you go about it. Somewhere, in that head of yours, is a memory of when we first met. Which will probably eliminate certain doubts you have about my intentions. For now, while we move, I suggest you get some rest. This Cicada is designed to never stop moving around the city, so they won’t find us here. You’re safe for now.”
The gears in my head start turning, in light of this new information. Click. Click. Click. Over and over I go over the details of everyone I’ve talk to about wanting to know the past. Every subtle turn of phrase, every look, becomes suspect. After a while I notice that Serra is not in the room anymore, but I can see the back of her head poking out from behind the pilot’s seat in the Cicada’s cockpit. So after going over the details a few dozen more times, I slip into a fitful sleep. This sudden boon seems too good to be true, and I don’t like it, but there’s nothing that can be done about it while I remain in this pitiful state.
One thing remains true about all of this though, it is about justice, because when I find the bastard that screwed my head up like this and made me life this damned lie for ten years there will be hell to pay. After all this time the only thing I have left inside of me is my anger.
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“Not dead.” I like that opening.
RYN Yes, now that you mention it, pertaining to that meal, I did indeed go “balls deep”. Didn’t realise what I was doing a the time, but I surely was. Couldn’t stop at good enough, could I?