Crash Flux 1: Welcome To The Machine (8 page)

Raydin was surprised when the guard unlocked his manacles.  He followed him to a small space behind the statue, which led to a concealed door.  The guard opened the door, and Raydin shuffled onto the elevator with him.  It opened into the Queens throne room.

Faux curtains made of worked sheet metal prepared the room for an exotic sort of opulence, curving across solid steel pillars shaped like roman columns, much like an old theater or playhouse.  The plate murals across the wall told a different story, however, depicting the spider queen disposing of some horrific elder god.  Raydin followed the story, identical murals beside each wall, as she created a verdant paradise, lush gardens and elaborate temples dedicated to long forgotten forces of nature, like wind, sunlight, the moon and the sky.  A portal linked this realm to the corrupt world below, a cesspool of betrayal and deceit, a mass of confusion, blood, and death.

Towards the end of the room, was a throne, large, angular, with sharp edges.  Silver Spiders seemingly formed out of nothingness and crawled across its surface, melting back into the chair as if they had never existed.  To each side of the throne, two pedestals with large violet orbs that glowed dimly in the violet black lighting of the room.  Sitting in the throne, Raydin thought there was another statue, nearly identical to the one he had seen earlier, only this one was smaller and far more elaborate, and was wearing clothes over her torso.  The statue moved, and Raydin saw that it was not a statue at all, but a living creature, with silver skin, that moved with graceful delicate motions that would have been impossible for a machine.  Her chest moved up and down, and he could see her breath mist in the freezing cold air encompassing the chamber.  

She spoke.  “Have him turn away as I change.”

The guard spun Raydin around, pointing his stunner at him menacingly.  Raydin caught a glimpse of her reflection on a large shield mounted near the doorway entrance.  Cables fell from the ceiling, which she gripped with her upper arms.  The snake body fell away as her torso lifted and separated from her lower half.  The lower arms were apparently attached to a curved rear plate that extended from the serpentine frame, and a pair of mechanical legs and hips extended forward from a hidden compartment under the throne.  She lifted her torso onto the bipedal frame beneath her.  Man and machine merged, and she steadied herself long enough to take a few steps forward and let go of the cables.  The serpentine body retracted back behind the throne, and the guard turned him around.  He stood facing a smiling, silver woman.

“You are in a lot of trouble,” she said, “you’re lucky I found you before the Keta did.”

Raydin said, “You’re not going to turn us in?”

“No,” she said, “I find it far more amusing leave you in this awkward set of circumstances.”

Raydin said, “Won’t you get in trouble?  It is hard to imagine that they do not know about this place.”

“Oh, they know.  But they indulge me.  I provide them with a prototype for their utopian folly.  In return, they grant me the leeway they would a spoiled child.”  She turned around and waved her hand over one of the orbs.  It displayed a model version of some puritan heaven, where every man and woman had silver wings and white, flowing robes, a civilization built upon the wisps of clouds.  “Haven View is no myth.  We invented the legends surrounding this place, and monitored those who took an interest.  Of course, we have to have a filtering process, so we created a program that compares peoples' monitored behaviors against those the Keta consider ideal.  Every week we have a lottery.  Those that are selected wind up here.  The mysterious circumstances under which those selected disappear and adds to the mysticism surrounding this place.”

“Its complete non-sense, of course.  Once people are inside the system, they are at the complete mercy of the Keta’s machinations.  Peoples' imperfections stack over time, and constantly censoring peoples' reality causes mental instability.  We have the technology to monitor their thoughts, their behaviors, their every waking moment while inside the machine.  The harder the Keta push, the harder the mind pushes back.”

She waved her hand over one of the orbs.  “In fact, we even monitor their dreams.”  Images flickered across the orb.  Violent fantasies played out before him, images of men killing other men, scenes of carnal sexuality, and other, more disturbing things, terrifying images and fleeting sounds that sent shivers down Raydin’s spine.  “Could you imagine a heaven in which you are presumed to be devoid of earthly desires?  A heaven without sex, without war, without sadness or pain or anger?” 

Raydin said, “That would be something.”

“Yes, but what?  The Keta use chemicals, psychological tricks, mental conditioning and memory erasure to try and create a perfect world for these people to inhabit.  Yet this project is a complete disaster.  It gets worse every year.  When I first came to the Towers, many years ago, I had to compete with another Humantix subsidiary for this project.  They had a similar program, called Valhalla, modeled after the Norse mythology surrounding life after death, where men fought constantly over breeding rights, and women literally had no rights, protections, or laws to defend themselves, save what little they could claim by way of force.  The firm that created it had intended it to be used on violent criminals, but the Keta would only allow it to be used on willing volunteers.  It was three times as effective as Haven View, but I got the contract anyway.”

Raydin followed her next to her throne.  He said, “Maybe the tether that connects the will to the body is too strong to be separated by any mechanical means.  Maybe there is a reason we live and die as we do.”  He brushed his finger across one of the spiders scurrying across the throne, surprised at the tactile stimulation he felt.  He had been sure it was a hologram.

She laughed, “You believe in an afterlife?  Of all the people in the world…”

Raydin said, “So why have you called me here?”

She said, “To offer you the same proposition I offer everyone who comes here, knowing what I know about this place.  Serve me or die.”

Raydin said, “That’s a rather rude proposition, don’t you think?”

She said, “You misunderstand me.  I never kill anyone.  I have a reputation for ruthlessness that is somewhat undeserved, in my opinion.  The Keta, however, have no compunctions about removing undesirables from Datcora.  If they discover you- and they will, you will either die or wish you had.  Follow me to my chambers.”

A portal opened from the wall facing the throne, and she spoke softly to the guard escorting Raydin.  “Stay here.”  Raydin followed her into the lavish room behind the throne, which unlike the throne room, was plush with cloth and other non-metallic decoration and furnishings.

She lay down on the bed, propping herself up on one elbow.  “It is so rare to find someone intelligent to talk to.  Suffering, I find, is the root of all intelligence.  That or the pursuits of pleasure, take your pick.”

“Don’t you mean, the pursuit of happiness?”

“Whatever.  Either way.”

“Is that why you surround yourself with dwarves?”

“How very perceptive of you.  Ever wonder why you never see anyone who is too tall, too short, too round or too portly?”  She motioned with her finger, dragging it across her throat with a harsh sound from her throat.  “Euthanasia is big business in the Towers.”

“So why am I here, then?  To serve, of course, but in what capacity?  I don’t even know your name…”

“Dora.”  She leaned back on her pillow and waved her hand up towards the ceiling.  The ceiling disappeared, replaced by a holoscreen.  A massive scene played out above him, hundreds of primitive, savage men, fighting a creature, a horrid thing that was little more than a maw and a mass of tentacles.  The men screamed and died, then disappeared.

“I have recently acquired another contract.  Valhalla has grown stale, and I have created an expansion to the original program.  You see how all these men are working together, trying to bring down this beast?  Do you see the intensity on their faces?”

Raydin strained to see, but he could not mistake the sounds they were making.  Whoever was participating in this simulation was absolutely convinced this was real.  She continued, “Those aren’t actors.  Every death you see on that screen is one hundred percent real, caused by biofeedback from a direct neural interface.  And that beast, which you see there, is nothing more than Grendal reincarnated.  By the end of the tock, all those men will be dead, and all of their own volition.  This is where you come in.”

“I want you, to program the newest addition to the Valhalla program.  The Grendal simulation.  It is a series of progressive stages, each more dangerous than the last, leading to an impossible endgame, from which there is no escape, no survival.  Those who are smart stop short of the last level.  Those that don’t… well, see for yourself.”

Raydin looked up at the man being torn in half, the horror on his face.  He said, “You want me to administer this program?”

“Yes.  The programmers who work on this project are constantly burning out, I need someone to motivate them, to see the benefits of the program.  I want you to show them how men come together when faced with impossible odds, I want you to make them believe that what they are doing is a better life than what they would have in the Hub.”

Raydin said, “I’m not sure I believe that.  The Hub is terrible, but I’ve lived out in the wastes, I’ve seen the reality, the horror that lies outside Datcora.”

“Yes, but have you seen the horror of this place?  Have you experienced it?  The mind numbing comfort as the system drains the lifeblood from its people?  The soul-crushing banality that destroys men’s minds as well as their souls?  Or, perhaps worse of all, do you know of the blood that greases the wheels of the machine?”

More images appeared, real images of back alley abortions, parking lot gang rapes, random schoolyard violence, suicide bombers, people burning themselves, mutilating themselves, so many feeds from so many different places that Raydin nearly retched.  “Stop.  Shut it off.”

She said, “I know what you’re thinking.  These are deviants, twisted malcontents.  They are not.  These are normal, law abiding people, suffering from a peculiar form of dementia known only to Datcora, and more specifically, the Hub.  One minute, they are fine, the next, the walls damming up their minds, separating them from their innermost desires, dividing them from the tide of humanity that crushes their sense of individuality and identity, until, finally…”

She switched to an image of a small child, gun in hand, as she fired upon a crowded classroom.  “She could be anyone of us.  The pressure builds, and builds, and builds, until the dam finally bursts.  Haven View, even Valhalla, are paradise compared to that.  And in case you are wondering, the Keta have their methods of keeping things under control, and let me tell you, the cure is worse than the disease…”

Raydin put up a hand, “There is no need to show me another clip.  I’ve been through the corrections and rehabilitation facilities, I’ve seen what lies underneath.  I’ve ran through the cracks in Datcora, and I’ve seen more of that side of this place than you could ever know.”

“That’s why I need you.”

Raydin said, “I’m still not convinced.”

Dora sat up, pulling a bottle of red wine and two glasses from a door inside her desk.  She poured herself a glass, and set it on the desk.  She poured another, and offered it to Raydin.  “I used to live in the Hub, once.  There was an accident in one of the transport tubes.  There was a great deal of public sympathy, as I was the only survivor, and I had been crippled from the waste down.  Humantix does not condone the use of cybernetic organs, ever since their trade embargo on Mecca.  Every piece of Bionic hardware comes out of Ichto- that’s probably old Japan to you, wastelunder- at ten times the cost.  Private insurance might cover it, but there was no way that anyone living in the Hub would have access to that kind of technology.  There was only one way out, the Humantix’ Achievement Program.  HAP delegates are as crooked as they come, they hold the ultimate power over everyone living beneath the Towers, the power to move people, from the Catacombs to the Hub, from the Hub to the Wheel, from the Wheel to the Towers.”

“Adon passed the HAP.  Maybe you should have done more research before throwing him to the wolves.”

“Did he?  Maybe he deserves a second look.  But I didn’t go through all this effort for him.”

“So, how did you pass?”

“I did things I was not proud of.  I kept a copy of Mrs. Winters guide to Etiquette in my purse.  I hurt people.  I betrayed my friends.  I ignored my family and left everything I knew or cared about behind me.  But I passed the exam, with a perfect score, just like every other HAP candidate that made it through.”

She continued.  “That’s were I got these,” she motioned with her hands towards her legs.  She laughed.  “I thought I’d never be able to make love again.  You’d be surprised how many men find this attractive.”

“There are better prosthetics, of course.  One’s that look and feel real to the touch.  But those won’t let you beat a horse in a footrace, either.  I’ve grown accustomed to them, after a while, even made some improvements.  I own a number of patents in regard to these legs.  If I wasn’t the patient, I could have installed them myself.”

“You’re a doctor?”

“Well, that’s what they call you when you graduate from Ichto Tech.  I consider myself more of an engineer.”

“So how did you end up here?”

“There was a fire.  In Lifetree, while I was on vacation in some forsaken, rustic village that was desperate for my peculiar form of charity.  Life outside the main arcology is a savage affair, it is evolution run amok.  The same thing that was chewing on your leg yesterday might be a different color the next, or sport another limb the day after  that.  I never expected any of the lightning bugs would actually set the hostel we were staying on fire.”

“I lived, but I was burnt over eighty-five percent of my body… or rather, what was left of my body.  I tried synth skin, but it was imperfect at best.  There was no sensation, I felt numb all over, all the time.  My lover left me, I fell into a deep depression.  Ichto offered me an honorary position on their faculty staff, for my “lifetime of achievement.”  I took there sympathy, their pity, and I threw it back in their face.  I created this.”  She pinched her arm, and the silver coating that surrounded her arm spread apart, revealing a patch of white, almost translucent, skin.  The silver coating covered the bare patch of flesh once more, like a second skin that wrapped around her entire body.  Raydin checked, and saw that even her eyes and tongue were coated in the silver, metallic substance.