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Sit back, relax, and allow your mind to see more than ever before.
- Ayami Tyndall
Cortex City shines in the darkness. Story after story of glass and steel, each pane a sheet of light brighter than the moon. Half of the lower walls are covered in massive windows, visible from several rows over. But above that, it’s just pure light, and suspended in that light are countless artificial minds, working tirelessly thanks to the perpetual energy of the interactors.
Nestled between these pillars of brilliance is a single brown behemoth, not half so brightly lit, and filled not with consciousnesses born from science but from love. Her kin.
The girl has never been to the L.A. Unificationist Tower before, but her parents have told her about it. Even during her illicit trips into the city, she never visited it, just looked from afar. But now she’s walking right up with Simon. The stars vanish overhead as they get all the way into Cortex City, replaced by the glare of the towers, the snow of the windows and the thumping of humanity all around them. But the Unificationist Tower is like a pool of calm. Not only is it less blinding, it is less crowded. The majority of traffic curves around its welcoming courtyards, now almost empty with night. No fence can be seen, and the lobby doors stand open, but it is a world separated as much as if it had been floating above Cortex City.
“Does Cirrus really want to meet us here?” she says, not stopping.
“That’s what he said in his reply,” says Simon, almost absentmindedly. His enthusiasm has dwindled visibly, maybe because they’ve been waiting hours to meet with Cirrus, but also because of the crowd. As soon as they left the plant, Simon seemed less sure. That was the last place he’d seen Kunti, and now they have to go to what might be the most dangerous place for a Ghost, just to have a chance of getting her back. The girl has to lead half the time just to keep him moving. People will take notice of them if they start standing around like statues.
He picks up noticeably when they get into the vacant courtyards, but only out of caution; fewer people means less crowd to disappear in. He looks around alertly, but he doesn’t move again until the girl is almost three chair lengths ahead of him.
She stops short of the doors at a shuddering in her pocket. She pulls out the dark little lopsided container for the transmitter Simon removed from her. “It’s not Marcus,” she says.
“Here,” says Simon, kneeling beside her and taking the device in his hand. He grips it tight, laying his thumb on the textured pad on the side. “It’s Cirrus,” he says, not that it could’ve been anyone else. But he speaks firmly again, reassured by hearing from a friend, so the girl doesn’t interrupt. He speaks in blocks, head bobbing as he translates the pulses into words. “He’s ready for us inside. He says he has someone for us to meet. A woman who’s been giving him trouble. He’s been in touch with her. On the Oldnet. Now he’s got her ready for us to meet. Says that with her in our pocket, Marcus won’t give us any trouble.”
“Who is she?” says the girl.
“Didn’t say,” says Simon. He hands her back the transmitter, which luckily has been quiet except for these covert messages from Cirrus and just a few check-ins from Marcus.
The girl starts toward the lobby again. “Why should she help particularly?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” says Simon as he follows. “But he seems to think she’s important. Maybe she has some connection to Marcus.”
* * *
Virginia can’t keep herself from tracing the weird little lines with her finger. Dashes and slashes and bars, they call them, but to her they look like a jumble of sticks hovering along the bottom of the window view like a nasty rash. Funiform, or Babel as most people call it, the last commonly used ‘script’. Of course Virginia can’t read a word of it, but Sophia translates it fine, and sometimes she does get a bit curious about it. Especially something the Unificationists call ‘erotic novels’; fictitious accounts of sex. She’s heard them read, but she’s also heard it said that the power is in the reading, not the hearing.
So she wanders one of the Unificationist Tower lobbies, fidgeting over letters with one hand and navigating views of the surrounding area with the other. She manages to avoid any collisions with the Unificationists themselves. Most of them walk in a disturbing silence, their fingers tapping at the air by their waist, their eyes darting along the lines of text displayed on the contact lenses they wear. Just the thought makes her eyes itch, so she takes a hard snort of nites and maxes her chatter.
She circles back around to a printer just as Merv is coming out with their drinks. Not carrying their drinks, but walking alongside them. The two cupmovers slide silently across the reflective floor, dodging feet like gymnasts. Merv is hunched over something, a notepad, Virginia thinks it’s called. His fingers rap against the bottom nervously and the pen whisks back and forth. He falls in step wordlessly with Virginia and they stop by a pillar where the cupmovers climb up to within comfortable reach.
Virginia slurps down a pull of something from the glowing menu in the food printer room; more lines and dashes and such nonsense. Merv finally finishes his diagram and joins her. “So,” he says, “change your mind yet?”
“No,” she says automatically. “I’m not leaving.”
“Virginia, you’ve been in here since morning. Do you really think the Unverifiable is going to walk into your lap?”
“No, I intend to walk into his lap. Both the people he admitted to killing were notable Unificationists. Businessmen, even office holders –” A concept Virginia has had a very hard time grasping “– and the most recent was even in a Unificationist community. The Unverifiable has some interest in the Babylonians, so I’m staying here until I find something.”
“But Virginia, what about Ylwa’s father? He wasn’t a Unificationist.”
“We don’t know for sure that the Darkman did that one. This is my best lead, so I’m sticking it out. Now, have a look at these views.” She raises her hand and waves, but nothing happens. She waves again. Nothing.
“Virginia, what are you…”
Her hand hasn’t moved. She raised it, and now it’s up beside her head, but it didn’t move. She tries to wave again, but the arm won’t budge. “Merv, I think –” She can feel one of her eyes blacking out. Just the left one. Half her field of vision fades. She lurches forward, tries to bring up her back foot but can’t, slumps against the pillar. “Merv, I…” Her other eye goes out and she feels herself lean and fall. Then she can’t even feel her heart beat anymore.
“I ask again: what do you want for the Ghosts?” The voice comes out of the mask itself, rasping, echoing off cold iron. “Will you gather us up and hide us away in a haven from the monsters of the world? Or are we the monsters, to be locked up in your darkest hole and forgotten?”
Marcus was surprised by the appearance of this masterfully crafted apparition, but now he regains his composure and fires back. “You are the ones who have been hiding yourselves,” he says challengingly. “Why not make yourselves known?”
“Is that what you want us to do?” There is a hiss and clank and the padlock on the mask pops open, falls to the ground, explodes in a stream of metallic dust. The mask peels open, rolling off the head to fall away and vanish as the lock had. Beneath is revealed a spectacle even more freakish than the tentacled menace. A human head, pale, bald, featureless except for its mouthes. Not a single mouth, but mouthes filling the whole head, off-set at wrong angles and curving along the skull impossibly. When the phantasm speaks, every mouth moves and the voice is multiplied, reverberant. “Shout to the heavens that we are unverifiable? Sign-up for membership as part of the Earth-community?”
“All you’re doing is asking questions,” says Marcus, looking at where this creature’s eyes should be. “Don’t you have any useful ideas of your own?”
“Maybe not, but now you’re just changing the subject.”
“Is it working?” says Marcus.
The many mouthed head barks a laugh from all its maws. “Please, sit.” A stiff chair appears for the hologram to sit in. Its limbs are thick wood, square, and ringed with barbed wire.
Marcus waves over a few blocks to make a bench and sits, still wishing he had eyes to look at. “You know, you’re not very subtle.”
“Life on the street doesn’t breed your kind of subtlety. But I do well enough, keeping things moving.”
“So I can see.” Marcus nods, relaxes in his seat. “Tell me, why did you come here?”
“To free Kunti and Brownie; you have no right to them.”
“That may be true, but I meant here. Why bring me here, just to talk?”
“Not to kill you, if that’s what you’re worrying about. So, yes, just to talk. If you can stomach the words of one ignored by the Cloud.”
“I have never had any great love for the Cloud, and these past days…well, let’s just say that my opinions of the world are broadening.”
“Good, good. Narrow minds solve only narrow problems. Do you know how many Ghosts there are in the world?” Marcus shakes his head. The mouthes smile. “Neither do I, but it must be many, although still hugely outnumbered. And now that we’ve been found out by such determined people as you and your comrades, it seems obvious that we can’t just continue on as before. I assume you and your friends won’t be happy to just forget about us and go back to your lives.”
“I would think not,” says Marcus. “And you can’t think you can live on like this indefinitely. Skulking –” A sharp cough from the multitude of mouthes “– laying low, filching food and resources, dodging notice. Where were you intending to take your little band?”
“It’s not my band,” says the toothed head. “All I can do is try and make things go smoothly. And…well, Brian, I think I’d have to say you’re the roughest bump in the road yet.”
Marcus half-wishes he had a coffee to drink, but this is a parsing plant, not a printer. “You all haven’t exactly made the world an easier place to live in.”
“Ah, I suppose not, but what to do of it? Should we skulk away to some distant corner of the Earth, an island perhaps, and never be heard from again? But then, you could never be sure we were all there.”
“Then what about just making yourselves known? It seems like it must happen eventually.”
“Maybe so, maybe not. Can Ghosts ever be anything but Ghosts? And if we did tell the world, and if we were believed, what would be the outcome?” The figure reaches behind himself and produces from the air a gleaming polished helmet, shining gold in the diffuse light, with a magnificent red crest. He places it on his head and the impossible not-face is obscured behind a nose guard and narrow eye and mouth slits. “Will it be war? The many against the few?”
“That way lies only madness,” replies Marcus.
“Well said. But peace then?” The helmet droops, sags, and finally melts, oozing down to pool on the floor and vanish. Within is revealed a new face, finely groomed, perfect skinned, but again impossible. On the one side is the face of a man, strong chined, broad nosed, bearded. On the other, a woman’s narrow jaw and delicate brows. The eyes move together and the mouth speaks as one. “Perfect balance between Ghosts and Users; is it possible?”
“I don’t know,” says Marcus, shaking his head and rising, “but isn’t harmony what we all dream of? Even today, we work toward the unification of all the Earth so nothing will be unknown.”
“Ah, the great project.” The man-woman stands, smiles, and then spreads his-her arms. There is a crack and a split appears in the chest. Not a cut, but a tear like in fabric. Arms fall limp and legs collapse as the opening widens, the body falling empty to the ground in a heap. And out of it flutters a single butterfly, tiny, perfect. The butterfly speaks: “But what can be certain now? What outcome can be assured? Gaps in the data; statistics all wrong. How far will you take it?” And the butterfly flies up and away, disappearing beyond the parsers. Marcus hears the quiet tip-tap of the projector disc fleeing. From the distance Julius’s final words drift in. “The future is your bitch now, Brian. What are you going to do with her?” And then he’s gone.
Turning, Marcus leaves. He waves back on his chatter as he walks down the street. He opens a call to Griffin and Ylwa and tells them, “At dawn, we tell the world about the Ghosts.”