Broken Pixels (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 4) (39 page)

Across the sterile room dominated by one wall of square aluminum freezer doors, Cam stood, watching, keeping an eye on Mara, while giving her enough space to deal with the situation.

No longer seeing the point, Mara took a deep breath and stepped to the head of the table. She slid it back into the wall, and the door automatically closed with a muffled
thunk
and sealed with a light hiss. Walking slowly over to join Cam, she still looked resigned.

“It doesn’t look like being here has helped,” he said.

Mara shook her head. “I never thought I would have to decide how to dispose of my own body. If I take it back to my realm, what am I supposed to do? Bury it? Have a funeral? I can’t put my mother through something like that.”

Cam nodded toward the elevator across the hall that would take them to the roof of the repository. “Since you will be here for a couple more weeks getting oriented to your new body, there’s no need for you to make an immediate decision. Dr. Canfield said the morgue can keep your biological body until you are ready to depart, or they can … you know.”

“Cremate it,” Mara said. “It’s okay to say it.”

A loud
bing
announced the elevator’s arrival, and the doors slid open. They stepped inside, and Cam punched a button on the panel next to the door.

“Well, on the positive side of things, Dr. Canfield informs me that your counterpart in this realm—the Mara who occupied your synthetic body originally—has been scheduled to receive a new body in just two weeks,” Cam said. “That’s pretty quick considering the backlog—a new body must be replicated and engrams extracted for every person who was transfigured into a shimmer.”

“That’s great. Maybe I’ll feel a less like a body snatcher and mass murderer after they get all that done.”

“You’ve got nothing to feel bad about. You saved … well, the world. If you had not stopped your friend Abby, we’d all have been transfigured into those strange pseudo-holograms. And, from what I’ve heard in the news streams, even if the light-based physiology proved stable, the fact that your friend had been promising immortality to people would have destroyed our society. We would have ceased to be human.”

Mara didn’t reply, just looked uncomfortable.

“Speaking of your friend Abby, what will you do with her? If you take her to your realm, won’t she be as big of a threat there as here?” Cam asked.

“Yes, but I can’t just leave her in that tube forever. That’s why I asked Dr. Canfield to let us use the holographic interface with Ping again. I’m hoping he can give me some suggestions about how to free Abby without releasing the Aphotis. It’s a long shot, but he’s got a much better head for this metaphysical stuff than I do.”

* * *

Back in the conference room, Mara and Cam took their seats at the round table, while an attendant placed the holographic platform on the floor next to the gray Plexiglas wall. Looking up in the air, speaking to no one in particular, he said, “Initiate holographic interface with Receptacle 7542-36-0112.” He waited long enough to see Ping’s image coalesce above the platform and turned to Mara. “The doctor recommends that you limit the duration of your session to ten minutes, so as not to cause stress to Mr. Ping.”

Mara nodded, and the attendant turned and left the room.

Ping’s transparent image came into focus with a startled look on his face.

Mara stood up and walked toward him. “Ping, are you okay?”

He wavered on his feet but seemed to get his bearings after a moment. “I think so. It’s just a bit disorienting being pulled from one place to another so suddenly.”

“You still having those lifelike dreams you told me about?” Mara asked.

Ping shook his head emphatically and said, “They’re not dreams, Mara. The people in the receptacles have created a whole new realm in here—a realm of thought in which they can live out their lives.”

Cam stood up and said, “That’s impossible. Everyone in the receptacles is in stasis. They sync up with us and share our lives.”

Mara held up a hand to Cam and said to Ping, “It’s just a dream. You said so yourself the last time we talked.”

“After our previous visit, Sam found me, and he told me how you transported him into a receptacle while you were at the regional transceiver node, after he exhibited symptoms of the dissoluendo virus. That’s when I realized that the occupants of the receptacles are sharing in this existence, in this realm. They are connected somehow—communicating and creating this realm with their thoughts.”

“Yeah, but you knew about the explosion at the transceiver node after we talked last time. It just became part of your dream.”

“You never told me about Sam being placed in a receptacle or the events leading up to that happening. Sam told me about it in this realm after he arrived.”

Mara’s face went white.

“What’s wrong?” Ping asked.

“I put Abby—the Aphotis—into one of those receptacles two days ago.”

Thanks so much for taking the time to read
Broken Pixels
. I hope you enjoyed it. If you find yourself with a few free minutes, please consider writing a short, honest review of the book on Amazon. It not only helps other readers discover the book, but gives visibility to a new writer.

Thanks again.

_______

The Chronicles of Mara Lantern
on Amazon:

Broken Realms
(Book 1)

Broken Souls
(Book 2)

Broken Dragon
(Book 3)

Broken Pixels
(Book 4)

Broken Dreams (Book 5 - Coming soon)

Learn more about the books at my website.

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