The Bright Image: Clean Book 3 Page 6

  Balancar folded his black-clad hands and bowed to the two of them as they entered.

  "My apologies for delaying this meeting. I'm sure you're aware of the tragedy that occurred here this morning."

  "The murder of a student. You have my understanding, and more importantly, my condolences," said Sarah.

  "And mine." Elizabeth bowed her head toward the pale-skinned aeon.

  "Nevertheless, I must inform you both, this recent event has forced me to reconsider my position on these negotiations."

  Sarah frowned.

  "How so, Balancar?"

  "While BrightNet's initial success suggests people are happy to see networks not managed by aeons, I must insist you continue to employ as many of my students and mentees as desire it, Miss Harper. That is our arrangement, and I must be firm in stating it should remain as such."

  Sarah's frown deepened. She had a way of knowing what Elizabeth was thinking without explicit communication, but she clearly could learn a thing or two from Balancar on that front.

  "I understand," said Sarah. "Elizabeth, what do you say?"

  "I speak for BrightNet when I say I'd be happy to employ another aeon of yours. I just don't want them in management positions where they control the company. BrightNet wants to represent aeons, but we need to speak to human necessity first, as that is what people expect from us."

  Balancar folded his hands before him.

  "We seem to have little else to discuss."

  "On that count you're wrong," said Sarah.

  She turned to Elizabeth.

  "This memory must not be shared with anyone, not even your partner. If you can't agree to that, you can't listen to what I'm about to propose."

  Elizabeth grimaced.

  "I understand."

  She split her recording registry and made a separate file to contain what came next.

  Unregistered Memory, Rebecca Waters, Candlegrove Heights Research Lab

  Rebecca sat in the medical chair surrounded by technicians while the heavy aeon, Onogottos tested a new sample of her blood at a station a short distance away.

  She waited for the pain. Another needle drew blood from her back, close to her spine. A lance of agony shot through her, cold and sharp. She gritted her teeth, but couldn't help a gasp at the shock.

  Her back arched. She nearly lost consciousness for a second. The needle withdrew. Rebecca sank back into the chair. When the world coalesced again, Celsanoggi and Thomas had returned to the room.

  "What's the word on the vote?" asked Rebecca, fighting the urge to reach for the place they had drawn blood from her.

  "Indecision," said Thomas. "The tension is going to continue."

  "Well, that doesn't help matters." Rebecca sat up, still feeling dizzy. She glanced at the heavyset aeon as he finished with her other blood sample. "Ono, anything?"

  Onogottos turned toward her. "Patience is a virtue. But shit, I am a genius so you can have a preliminary answer now. Your current sample also contains the parasites I detected in the clean sample."

  Rebecca closed her eyes and sighed.

  "That means this isn't over. You're going to need to do more tests."

  "Damn straight," said Onoggotos.

  "You have great bedside manner, you know."

  "Lucky for you, Rebecca. I'm a researcher, not a doctor."

  Rebecca opened her eyes and lay back. She shook her head, rubbing her hair against the cushion.

  "You don't understand irony, do you?"

  "I could if I chose to."

  Thomas and Celsanoggi approached between the techs.

  "Can you walk?" asked Celsa.

  "Not exactly confident to try that just now," said Rebecca. "That last sample seriously hurt."

  "The spinal sample is vital to see how close the parasites are to your nervous system," said Onoggotos. "My apologies for not warning you properly. Take as long as you need here, but you can go for the day when you’re ready." He waved the technicians to follow him to the other side of the room.

  Thomas and Celsanoggi stood beside Rebecca's chair.

  "Can you at least give me a dose?" she asked.

  "But Rebecca, the pain will increase," said Celsanoggi.

  "I know a way around that. I'll just network while I wait to recover."

  "Alright. Here." Celsanoggi removed a bandage and held out her hand to Rebecca. Ichor trickled forth. Thomas caught some of it in a clean beaker. The golden liquid filled a third of the container.

  "Just a little more," said Rebecca.

  "Any more and you'll have a heroic dose," said Thomas.

  “What can I say,” muttered Rebecca. "I'm feeling heroic."

  Celsanoggi added another few trickles of ichor. She handed the beaker to Rebecca.

  Thomas smiled.

  "Bottoms up."

  Rebecca laughed, but the motion hurt her back. She grimaced and raised the ichor to her lips. She drank.

  The place where Angela Watts and rest of the leadership from Fort Wayne stayed in the refugee district was a former shopping mall, dilapidated once after the arrival of the aeons, and then refurbished only to fall into disrepair again.

  I sent a message to Samantha, telling her where we were and what we were doing. Best to keep everyone in the loop.

  Phil and I followed the four women along one floor with a railing overlooking a dismal lower level, one never quite restored. What had once been shops with wide windows in the time before the aeons were not boarded up apartments, each probably inhabited by dozens of people. A skylight overhead flashed brighter with lightning. Thunder rolled high above.

  Trisha, the middle-aged woman pushing her quiet, disabled sister in her wheelchair, glanced at me.

  “We’re almost there.”

  The office-space Fort Wayne’s former mayor held had once been a coffee shop, down the steps on the first floor of the mall. I could tell because rusting machines with valves and drips occupied a sizable portion of a counter on one side of the room. A few chairs remained at tables long ago metal legs pitted with rust, and their wooden tops lost beneath layers of dust.

  In front of the old coffee machines, two tables had been polished, dust completely removed. A collection of more serviceable chairs stood around them. There was a large window, still somehow intact, in one wall, looking out to the street where people scattered for shelter in the intensifying storm.

  “Have a seat,” said Angela. “This story may not be new to you reporters, but it’s what brought the rest of us here.”

  “I’m here to listen,” I said.

  Phil nodded, then focused his attention on Angela.

  “So…where can we begin?” she said.

  “Wherever you think makes sense.”

  “In that case. Last year, a major battle took place a hundred miles from Fort Wayne. Forces from the city attacked some kind of strong point in the wilderness. We don’t know much of what happened, or even who won, but we know whatever they were fighting struck back over the course of the following months.

  “Towns and cities in the west have been evacuating, as you no doubt know. They—We are fleeing an army. An army of giant plants and mad soldiers. The insane, the beasts, and their aeon leaders.”

  “Aeon leaders?” I frowned in thought. “You think the rogue stars in the wilderness are aeons?”

  The former mayor nodded.

  “That’s what we think,” said Trisha. “They move like aeons. And they can clean people.”

  I scowled.

  “That’s scary to consider.”

  “Report it, and maybe we can do something to stop them,” said Angela.

  “Right,” I said. “Are you ready to go on the record?”

  “More than ready,” said Angela.

  I turned to Phil and he activated all his sensor captures, focused on me and Angela. The real interview began.

  Unregistered Memory, Rebecca Waters, Candlegrove Heights Research Lab

  The dose peeled back the network for Rebecca's mind t
o observe. She gazed into the city, glimpsing data packets flicking back and forth between luminous minds, marveling at the mountainous information structures of public memory banks, yearning to plunge into the secrets hidden in the brilliance. Yet, something stronger drew her inward.

  What was the point of discovering the secrets of others if she didn't know herself?

  She opened mental eyes in a memory construction, like the full sensory illusions she created in others as distractions. Only here, the images and sounds gradually swam into focus like she was waking up. But she remained divided from the pain of her physical body still lying in Candlegrove Heights.

  Shapes went from darkness and colors to fully-formed buildings, trees, streets. Birds called in the air, which smelled of worms after a fresh rain. She stood on a street once familiar, but now alien.

  She stood at the end of the walk to her family's house in the Green Valley. The wind shifted tree branches and her hair.

  Her parents stood at the window of their living room, looking out at her. She hurried away down the street. Damn the memory of the day she left home. She willed herself to leave it behind. Like her little brother.

  She swore mentally.

  "There is no way I'm going to guilt myself now," she said. "I have enough problems without dredging the past."

  She walked out of the Green Valley. Again.

  The street changed until she was walking through the city. She passed Yashelia's building, the one whose name and location remained locked somehow. The layout of the building was without reason.

  Sudhatho passed her, going the opposite way with his little daughter holding his hand. He spared her a glance, a grimace, a grunt of pain. Rebecca tried to ignore him and the girl.

  But she still looked after them as they faded into the mist of memory. She stopped in front of Lotdel Tower. On a whim, she appeared in the apartment she shared with Jeth.

  The spiraling light veins in the ceiling of the living room sent shadows dancing on the floor, and not just hers. There were two people in the imagined place with her.

  Jeth held Elizabeth Ashwood, one hand on her waist. The two figments gazed into each other's eyes. Until Jeth broke away and left Elizabeth sitting on the couch.

  Rebecca scowled at the figment of Jeth.

  "I thought I created this place to hurt less?"

  Her mental Jeth turned to her.

  "You don't always have to be in control, you know."

  "You think that's why he left her?" Rebecca asked, knowing the thing that looked like Jeth was really another part of her.

  "We think it."

  "Guess it's only a matter of time before we go too."

  "You said it."

  "We said it." Rebecca waved a hand. The imagined Jeth, Elizabeth, and room flew into swirling motes of light.

  She walked alone again.

  "I don't need to feel guilty. Jeth made his decision, for now."

  She climbed a hillside and found herself on a plain of tall stalks of waving grass. The dirt road on which she walked narrowed to a mere path through the prairie. In the distance, a high wall of white limestone gleamed over the swaying stalks.

  Rebecca frowned.

  "What is that?"

  An analysis note popped out of the grass carried in the mouth of a prairie dog. The mental animal dropped its envelope on the path in front of Rebecca. She picked it up and read.

  "Unknown structure of unknown origin."

  Unknown origin meant she had not created it. She did not walk but immediately appeared before the wall. Up close, it was clear the barrier stretched to the sky and from horizon to horizon.

  Rebecca ran her hand along the stone. She felt a pulse from the other side. She removed her focus and let the imagined world and memories crumble into blank emptiness but the wall remained.

  When nothing but her and the barrier remained, she walked along its length. She walked for some time but found nothing. Rebecca stopped and conjured a drone from mental code. The little shape shot out ahead of her, the returned seconds later to her conscious mentality.

  It reported only that it has found an irregularity in the wall. Rebecca transported her perspective to the spot the drone indicated as different. It was a window. Bars covered the frame bolted directly to the stony surface, and shielding a pane of full translucent shatter-proof glass. A shadow flitted past on the other side of the window.

  "Drone, did you see that?"

  It responded negative. Nothing could be detected on the other side of the wall. That part of her mind was locked off, undetectable. This barrier kept her memories separated, a bifurcation she could not sense from anywhere else.

  Excitement mingled with trepidation. She hoped this wasn't just the dose fooling with her. Overdoing it could result in a hyperactive construct in rare cases.

  "How long has this been here?" she asked her drone.

  The drone returned a date stamp.

  05.05.2075

  The date fell within Rebecca's estimates of when Yahselia had cleaned her. She took a step forward, hesitated, gathered her courage. Rebecca walked to the window. She reached between the bars and put her hand on the glass. No pulse beat there, unlike the wall itself.

  "Who's there?" asked a voice that made Rebecca cringe inwardly, her own voice.

  Despite being muffled by the barrier, there was no mistaking it.

  "Who are you?" she asked.

  "I'm you, of course. I'm glad you finally found me, but our communication here is limited."

  “Limited? Why?”

  “I can’t explain it. Find Carlin’s Blood Bar in the district near here.” An image of a building flickered in the windowpane. “Go now.”

  A force like a whirlwind tore Rebecca way from the window. She raced back to her conscious mind. To hell with the pain. She had more important things to worry about. The fragment of her behind the window did not need to convince her of that, but for the first time since her return from being Clean, Rebecca had a trail to follow.

  She woke in a brilliant haze of pain. When she found herself able to stand a minute later, she went to find Thomas and Celsanoggi.

  Unregistered Memory, Rebecca Waters, Refugee District

  Rebecca said goodbye to Thomas and Celsa at the gates of the refugee district. She checked her citizenship ID card and hoped the guards would not ask too many questions at the checkpoint. She found them less stringent about letting people in than out.

  Rebecca walked along the street in the rain, scanning from under her jacket's hood, looking for any sign of the building from her memory. She knew it was here somewhere. The view of Candlegrove across the canal from the remembered bar was still fresh in her mind.

  The sidewalk was crowded with people pushing toward the gate. Rebecca moved against the flow, heading toward the train station on the far end of the district while staying within sight of the canal's edge.

  The smell of outdoor cooking mingled with fresh rain and the tang of old fuel.

  The heroic dose of ichor Celsanoggi had given her still lifted her senses to a higher level.

  The headlights of a truck flashed on ahead of her, casting the shadows of people across the pavement, flickering with motion and dotted intermittently by falling rain.

  Ten blocks from the checkpoint, she spotted a rusted metal sign that leaped out at her from a previously unknown memory. Her eyes widened involuntarily as she stared at the square of gray rimmed with red-brown wear.

  The sign read, "Carlin's Blood Bar," and pointed down the street perpendicular to the canal. Rebecca took the turn.

  Carlin's Blood Bar was the place she’d been told of by her walled-off memory. She walked another two blocks, then stopped, frozen by the sight at the end of an effective cul de sac left by a collapsed entrance ramp which led to a defunct skyway. But it wasn't the squalor of ruin that made her freeze.

  Peeling paint, and a glowing neon sign over the single door set in an alcove of the walls announced Carlin's Blood Bar. It was real, and moreov
er, her memory had not lied. It was right here. She looked over her shoulder.

  Through the rain and clouds, the towering, monstrous shape of Candlegrove loomed against the backdrop of the other heights.

  She took a deep breath. This was the place.

  Reaching out over the network, she sought for Jeth. She did not find him. He must be running incognito, or low on ichor. She turned to the door of the bar.

  If the truth from her memory continued, she guessed it might be dangerous to go in alone. She composed an image of the location and her immediate thoughts, as well as a map of her path, then uploaded it to one of BrightNet's remote banks, using an access code Jeth had given her. She set up a drone process to ping Jeth from the bank if she did not disable it in an hour.

  Inhale. Exhale. Now or never.

  Rebecca opened the door and stepped into the blood bar.

  On the inside, Carlin's was lit like any other evening blood bar. Dim light veins left parts of the place in shadow. A large mirror framed by shelves of bottles covered the wall behind the bar, itself a polished black counter.

  The place looked dead, despite the crowds outside. That part didn't surprise Rebecca, as it was still only five in the afternoon. No one stood behind the bar, but a lone waitress was polishing one of the circular tables in the middle of the room, between the bar and the booths.

  She looked to be similar in age to Rebecca, maybe a few years older, and of mixed Latin descent with straight black hair and a dark complexion. Rebecca walked to the bar and pulled back her hood. The woman did not look at her but kept polishing.

  "Bartender should be here any time now. Our aeons could be a few minutes."

  "Thanks," said Rebecca with a frown at the waitress. There was something familiar digging at Rebecca about the woman's face. She looked all too close to someone she’d once known, but Rebecca could not place the rest of the memory.

  "Can I ask you a few questions?" she said.

  "You mean a few more? Shoot."

  "Have you been working here long?"