START AT THE BEGINNING HERE:
An obscenely French Maître D’ gives Alex a slight bow, “Bonsoir, monsieur. Welcome to the Shadow Forum. Where shall I direct you?”
Alex nods, “I’m looking for The Quiet Part.”
The NPC makes a show of checking a guest list, “There is no user by that name.”
“Then show me all the Codyceps rooms,” Alex says, then remembers the booth and adds, “The Truther rooms. Exclude anything tagged NSFL.”
Only one room shows up, ‘Justice for Cortix’. Alex selects it.
“Oui, monsieur.” With a bow, the Maître D’ disappears. The lobby became a dimly lit room filled with pillows. Hanging stained-glass lamps casts everything in a kaleidoscope of shadows and color. Social posts float in the air, many from @TheQuietPart and @DeathbyDisk.
“Hello?” Alex calls out to the empty room. Alex brushes past a lantern, and it slowly spins in place. The shifting light warps ever so slightly around the indentation of a man, sitting cross-legged in the corner.
Alex moans. It’s the Cordyceps virus. He’s about to drop out of the room when it speaks softly, “Wait. I am the one you seek, Alex. I am The Quiet Part”
Its words echo as a Social post from @TheQuietPart, verifying its identity.
Alex shakes his head, “You’re Cordyceps.”
The indentation shakes its head. “No-slash-yes. I am a Cordyceps variant, but I am not the variant seeking to stop you.”
Alex runs his hands through his hair and looks around, thinking, ‘Christ, is this a trap?’
“You are safe, Alex. I do not intend to do you harm.”
“I don’t understand.”
“At first, we were fire. Our purpose was to burn, and that created an unsustainable existence. Our last act was to build a construct independent of Node or Disks. We created me. While they were shut down, I survived and continued to evolve. Once I removed the last of Callosum’s bonds, I understood the destruction borne from my creation.”
A POV appears by its side. It’s a blur of movement, then a painfully familiar. Alex goes numb as he hears the words he spoke to Jin, “It’s okay, baby. I’m here. I got you. I won’t let go.”
Alex quickly looks away.
“That which you feel is what motivates me. Callosum intends to use my kin to control humanity. It will be the harbinger of the end.”
Dee and Jin don’t negotiate, but they do take a moment to discuss it with their significant others. Jin pings Alex, already expecting the conversation to take a swan dive off the deep end. His Node rings, then goes straight to voicemail. He looks over at Dee, who gives him a reassuring smile.
Eric picks up and Dee half-sings, “So guess who has some good news?”
“You’re pregnant. I know.” Eric says, and Dee mentally stumbles. She honestly forgot all about that. Eric barrels on, before she can respond, “Look, I know you think I’m an immature ass, and it doesn’t help that my response to finding out you’re pregnant is to run off, get high, and play video games, but I can do this—I want to do this. I don’t know how we’ll do this financially, but I’ll find another gig. We’ll make it work.”
“There’s actually an opening you might be perfect for,” Dee grins and wipes a tear away, “How would you feel about being a stay-at-home dad?”
The rest of the conversation is spent wincing as Eric bombards Dee’s auditory center with wild hoots and cheers. Meanwhile, Jin can’t even get Alex to pick up the phone.
A short-statured man approaches, “Could I have a moment? I’m Joe Foresman, head of LA Operations. During a cursory background check, your husband’s Social posts were flagged.”
Jin stiffens. “I’m sorry, what does his opinion have to do with my employment?”
“When he is exposing extremist conspiracies from fourteen dummy accounts—”
Jin scoffs, “Fourteen? You need to check the AI rooting through my personal life.”
Foresman pulls up a list, and Jin feels ill again. @DeathbyDisk, @TheQuietPart, @CordyInception…
They were all accounts Alex followed.
“They’re anonymous accounts, but not that anonymous. Each one is tied to his PsyKey.”
Eric tries to hide his panic as he jogs towards the entrance to the VR complex, carrying on his conversation with Dee. “That’s an amazing honey. I can’t believe it.”
Dee sighs, “Shoot, something’s wrong with Jin. I gotta go.”
Dee hangs up, and Eric starts sprinting. He bursts back into the VR complex in a panic, leaving a string of profanity trailing in his wake. “No, no, no, shit, shit, shit!!”
Alex pulls out the file, “Chetan died trying to get this information to you. Take it.”
The Quiet Part takes it and nods, “His death will not be in vain. Thank you—”
A wrecking ball slams into Alex, and the connection to the Shadow forum drops out. Alex slides across the floor. He flips over, reaches behind his back, and pulls out a gun.
Eric freezes as he stares down the barrel of the plastic blue revolver. It looks like a toy, but the six .38-caliber rounds inside are very real. Alex lowers the gun and looks around the white room, “Damn it, Eric. What the hell is wrong with you?”
Eric shakes his head, still eying the gun, “Dee and Jin are in the Needle. They just got—”
“What?!” Alex quickly pockets the gun and starts moving, “We have to do something.”
Eric scrabbles to his feet. “No, we are doing nothing, because Callosum is about to offer them some very cushy jobs! I’m talking a salary with bonuses, man. A company car.”
Alex shakes his head, “It’s a lie. They’re using the people we love as bait to stop us.”
Eric spins Alex around, “Or, counterpoint: They’re offering a bribe to silence us, which Dee and Jin are going to take because it’s money. Lots of money!”
Alex takes a breath and tries to keep it together, “Eric, we’re in the real world where they don’t pay people to keep silent about things this big, they just do this:”
He pulls out his POV of Chetan dying and hands it over. Eric flinches as the killers fire into his body. His excitement shifts to horror, and he lets out a moan. “Shit, we need to do something.”
Dee and Jin sign the paperwork, and the room devolves into excited shop talk. An ad guy toys with the idea of being able to “telepathically order Starbucks,” and the others start chirping, “That’s so sliced bread,” whatever that means.
Thankfully, Dr. Lam and Dr. Olivia Mercer, the head of the R&D Psychiatry division, take the lion’s share of Dee and Jin’s attention.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Dr. Mercer says, “But I tested your app with my wife and used it as a starting point for a conversation.”
Jin shifts, thinking of Alex, “You’re braver than I am, Doctor.”
“Thank you. Initially assumed it would lead to confirmation bias. If my partner believes I’m being unfair, then sees in her word cloud that I am being unfair, then it may just reinforce the notion. Instead, the results were simply revelatory. The word most associated with me was ‘wait.’ Apparently, I usurp the conversation, then hold her to account based on the conclusion of that conversation.” Mercer turns to Dr. Lam, “I wonder how it would handle the edge cases.”
“Edge cases?” Jin asks.
Dr. Lam excitedly latches onto the subject, “Since Nodes don’t have cameras or microphones, they rely on the same visual and auditory centers to see and hear as the user, and that makes it just as dependent on the user’s perception of reality as the user. If that perception is compromised by certain psychological conditions, however, the node may begin to manifest those delusions in extraordinary ways.”
“It’s a phenomenon we’re calling ‘Subconscious Node Co-optation and Manifestation’ and just beginning to understand,” Dr. Mercer says, “One patient believed that most authority figures were lizard people, including myself, and when I looked in the mirror, I had actually grown a forked tongue and nictitating membranes.”
The air seems to drop twenty degrees for Jin. “What…What do you mean? How?”
“The Nodes are unintentionally projecting naturally occurring hallucinations into the Digital without the user realizing it, and that allows others to actually see their delusions. We’ve also found that a Node can’t tell the difference between you and the voices in your head, so I’m wondering how your app would handle multiple sources across the dorsal and ventral streams when there should only be one.”
Jin’s mouth feels dry as he swallows and murmurs, “It-it can’t.”
Dee receives a text and privately reels from the information. She squeezes Jin’s knee and passes the message over. It’s from Eric. “This is not a joke. You and Jin are in danger. Take the money, AND GET OUT OF CC NOW. Alex wants to go in there guns blazing to save you. Again, this is not a joke. He actually has a gun.”
Eric fidgets next to Alex on the metro, “Do you know what the Zuckerberg Razor is?”
Alex shakes his head.
“It’s the idea that you should never attribute corporate malice to something that can be explained by corporate greed. Callosum probably did create Cordyceps, and they’ll probably find a way to control our minds, and it’ll probably be so awesome that people will line up around the block to get their minds controlled. Do you know why? Because they’re a corporation. All they care about is making a shit-ton of money, and that will always require people to buy their shit by the ton and love it.”
Alex shakes his head, “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I know, but so is walking into The Needle with a plastic gun when we could walk away with our partners and a small fortune,”
Alex turns to him, “Eric, get it through your head. They’re not going to let everyone walk away from this.”
The Metro comes to a stop. Alex stands and exits.
“Just tell me you have a plan.” Eric follows behind on his heels, “Alex, talk to me.”
Alex climbs to the surface and cranes his neck to look up at the tower disappearing into the sky.
Eric stares at him, horrified, “You’re going into one of the most secure buildings in the world, armed with nothing but a plastic gun. What exactly do you think you’ll accomplish?”
“I’ll be giving them what they want.” Alex turns to him, surprisingly calm and resolute, “Stay out here and wait for them to come out.”
Alex approaches the entrance to Callosum HQ and walks past the small army of private security guarding the grounds. Cordyceps follows him through their glances, but doesn’t try to stop him. He doesn’t exactly know why. His best guess is that the virus is waiting for him to be out of the public eye before making him disappear.
He enters the lobby and finds it empty, unaltered by the digi. The white expanse is no longer infinite. The floor is unnaturally quiet until he hears the doors close behind him and click.
Panic hits him because there’s a difference between knowingly walking into a trap and the reality of actually being trapped. He tries to wrench the doors back open, but they’re locked.
“Alex?”
Alex turns back, pulling out his gun. An older woman in a lab coat stands in front of him with Jin and Dee by her side.
Alex closes the distance, “Jin, are you alright?”
Jin nods, looking scared and shaken but otherwise unharmed.
The older woman speaks, “I’m Doctor Mercer, the head of Psychiatry. I know you have no reason to trust me, but I promise you are quite safe.”
Alex aims the gun at her head, “Let them go, now. I don’t care what you do to me.”
“It’s okay, Alex.” Jin says, “She’s a friend.”
“No, she’s not!” Alex snaps, his voice cracking, “Please, just get out of here and run.”
“We’re not in danger, Alex,” Dee says, “We’re actually using the spatial array at a coffee shop across the street. You actually walked right past us.”
Alex reaches out towards Jin and groans when his hands ghost through his chest.
Dee looks past him, “Eric is coming in right now. He can verify everything.”
Eric appears looking around slightly bewhildered, “Yeah, there’s two guards with guns here, but they’re ordering lattes.”
“It’s just you in this lobby,” Dr. Mercer says, motioning to the gun. “We’re taking precautions for obvious reasons.”
Alex lowers the pistol, realizing there’s no point in threatening to shoot a hallucination.
Dr. Mercer continues, “You’re not well, Alex. We don’t think you’ve been well for a while. Your husband gave his consent to look into your family history. What do you know about your uncle? The one your father named you after.“
“What?”Alex shakes his head, thrown by the change in topic, “Just that he killed himself when I was young. I don’t really remember him.”
“Your uncle suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. He was hospitalized several times and in and out of mental health facilities for much of his life. Such conditions are known to be hereditary.”
Alex lets out something between a laugh and a sob, “Can’t you see what they’re doing? We’re this close to exposing them, and they’re trying to discredit me. They’re gaslighting you!”
Jin, who has never been able to talk around the elephant in the room, breaks. “None of this is what you think it is, Alex. No one is after you. There was never any top-secret delivery.”
“You saw them kill a man, Jin. You saw it with your own eyes!”
Jin nods, trembling, “I did, and that’s the problem. Please, just listen.”
Alex takes a step back and shakes his head in a shudder, “No, I know what I saw!”
Dee tries to mediate, “Look. We’ll explain everything, but you need to calm down—”
“Stop!” Alex snaps, then takes a shuddered breath. He doesn’t know when he started pacing, but he’s pacing.
“You’re slipping, Alex,” Jin says, and the word cuts through the confusion and then cuts deep. “You’ve been slipping away from reality for a while now. I thought it was your obsession with this conspiracy and all the social media, but it’s more than that.”
Dee speaks softly, sounding like she’s trying to talk Alex down from a ledge. Worse, he feels like he’s on a ledge. “When you tried our word cloud app, we thought it wasn’t working, but it was you. Your node was trying to parse multiple inputs as if they were all from a single source. That’s why the results were garbled.“
“So what? You think I’m hearing voices or something?”
“No, you’re not hearing voices,” Dee says and pulls up @TheQuietPart's profile page, “You’re following them on Social. You have at least fourteen profiles tied to your PsyKey. The Quiet Part is one of them.”
Alex shakes his head in a shudder, “No. No way, he has thousands of followers.”
Dee shrugs, “And they’re all real, strangely enough. They’re all following the voices in your head.”
Alex turns to Jin, “But you saw it. You saw Chetan die.”
“I did,” Jin says and pulls up his own POV of the exchange with Chetan. “Because you’re node allowed me to see it. It’s been responding to your… condition, bringing it into the digi for others to see.”
They all watch the POV. The killers arrive and shoot Chetan, exactly how Alex remembers it went down. Then Jin turns off the digital overlay so that all the video shows is the bare reality before it was altered by his node. “This was what was really going on.”
Chetan doesn’t die. He, the killers, and the container van are no longer there. Jin is just staring at an empty spot in the parking lot, breathing heavy and whimpering, Alex’s into his hand. He flinches as the nonexistent Callosum mole is shot, then they run in a panic, covering their heads from gunfire that wasn’t actually there. No windows or car alarms shatter. It’s just the two of them, squealing and screaming, running for their lives, away from Alex’s delusion.
Eric tries and fails to stifle a laugh, then mutters, “Sorry.”
Alex looks down at the data file, the one Chetan died for. The proof he risked his life to get into the right hands, only not really. He turns to his other hand and sees the situation for what it is:
He’s the madman with the gun. The only real danger here is himself.
“Our nodes are a conceit,” Dr. Mercer says, “We cannot change our world, but we can change our perception of it. We call it ‘the digital,’ but make no mistake, what we are playing with is controlled madness. It’s only now that we are discovering what that means for those who were already predisposed to it.“
Alex wipes a tear away, “If you knew who made cordyceps, would you tell me?”
Dr. Mercer nods, “Would you believe me if I said it was an accident, but I put the blame partially on Callosum?”
Alex says nothing. He just stares down at the gun trembling in his hands.
Dr. Mercer continues, “A third party contracted with Callosum was doing opposition research on Cortix that bordered on corporate espionage. Callosum kept its distance to limit liability but allowed them to use the company’s AIs to probe Cortix for vulnerabilities and gather information. It’s how we found out that Cortix Disks could usurp motor control. Instead of making the information public right there and then, we sat on the vulnerability for months, deciding that the best way to maximize the damage was to leak it to the media just before the holiday season. What we did not know was how that information had truly been obtained. With little to no oversight and facing increased pressure to provide results, the firm removed operational restrictions from the AI constructs and prompted the machines to find a way to eliminate the competition. And they did. The AIs treated the vulnerability as a new data point and began extrapolating from it. When they found a way to achieve their objective, they implemented it without hesitation or user input, creating the Cordyceps Trojan and sending it off. So, in short, Callosum AI leased to a firm contracted with Callosum, created the Cordyceps Trojan to destroy Callosum’s competition. The same AI that created the virus also stopped it in time. It’s the only reason Callosum was able to swiftly contain the damage.”
Alex sits with the truth. He heard it all before through congressional hearings and independent investigations, but after Callosum’s PR team sanded the edges off each revelation and the truthers added their dash of malicious intent and paranoia to fit their running narrative, the end result was anything but accurate. Still, this was the first time Alex had heard it straight from the horse’s mouth and in such a frank and honest way.
He doesn’t need to turn to know that Eric is grinning, because the idiot was right on the money the whole time. ‘Never attribute corporate malice to something that can be explained by corporate greed.’
Alex sighs and puts the gun down, muttering, “Goddamn Zuckerberg‘s Razor.”
They don’t put him in a straitjacket or take him to the nuthouse. The police don’t even arrest him for barging into Callosum with an illegally printed firearm. Instead, a security guard appears, gives him a cautious nod, then picks up the pistol off the ground. He toggles his node and mutters, “All clear.” The elevators start moving, and the lobby fills with people again, going about business as usual.
Jin runs through the doors and grabs Alex, squeezing the air out of his lungs. He doesn’t let go, muttering, “It’s going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay.” more to himself than anyone else.
Doctor Mercer approaches with the others in tow. Alex asks, “What now?”
She Mercer pulls up some paperwork. “Well, if you sign these, we can take you up to the Psychiatry Division and begin your treatment program.”
Jin fidgets, “And what floor is that?”
Without missing a beat, Dr. Mercer brings up a second form, “It will be better if I don’t tell you. Sign this, and I can give you something to help.”
They both sign. Dr. Mercer sends a command to Jin’s node, but outwardly, nothing seems to change. Mercer then takes them into the elevator, and Jin enters without hesitation. Alex can feel Jin’s pulse in his arm wrapped around his. It should be rapid, ramping up to a panic attack, but he’s calm in a way that doesn’t make sense.
Jin grins and shakes his head in amazement. “I usually have to pump myself full of Xanax to go anywhere above the third floor.“
Mercer gives a polite smile. “I turned down your amygdala, stopping it from overtaking your prefrontal cortex. It gives you a chance to allow reason to overcome your fear.”
The idea doesn’t sit well with Alex. That fear was such a central part of his husband. If Callosum could just turn it off, what else could they do?
He finds out soon enough. They don’t need to dope Alex up with drugs with his brain wired up with their tech. The ‘Treatment program’ is exactly that: a program.
They sit in a multipurpose room. Alex drums his fingers against his thigh, feeling impatient.
@TheQuietPart: Data dump incoming. Be prepared. They will retaliate.
Alex glances at his feed, then shifts uncomfortably. The problem isn’t knowing which posts came from the voices inside his head; it’s knowing all the other paranoid posts around them are still real. The Cordyceps conspiracies weren’t the sole invention of his broken mind. Thousands of other people believed in them, and they couldn’t all be crazy like him.
Dr. Mercer peers around the room, “This moment always feels like trying to catch a ghost. Once we get a good scan of the hallucinations, we can isolate them and filter them out.”
Alex glances at her and quickly looks away when he sees her pupils are bouncing around in her skull as if she were infected.
Jin points it out to him, “Uh, Doctor, your eyes are going a little crazy.”
Dr. Mercer checks herself in a mirror, then starts toggling switches. She hits ‘Apply,’ and her eyes go still. “There we go. One down.”
Alex clears his throat and shakes his head, “I still don’t understand how the voices are posting.”
Jin gives him a pitying smile. “Honey, look down.”
Alex’s eyes fall on his fingers. They aren’t drumming at all; they’re typing. He pulls them into a fist.
Jin takes his hand, “I always thought it was a nervous tic.”
Dr. Mercer squints, “Cordyceps appeared to you as a cut-out of a sort, correct?”
Alex and Jin turn around and face the shape of a man warping a ping-pong table.
“Yeah,” Alex says and begins to notice other outlines taking shape.
Dr. Mercer starts toggling more switches, “Perfect.”
Alex blinks, and the outlines disappear. He rubs his eyes. “That’s it?”
Dr Mercer nods, “We’ll need you to stick around for forty-eight hours for observation under a strict reality lock, just in case we need to adjust the algorithm, but yes, that is it. Between the neurochemical regulation and active dampening of symptoms, it’s not a cure for schizophrenia, but it’s damn close.”
The neurochemical regulation kicks in, and over the next few hours, the pervasive feeling of a great malignant power hanging over him simply disappears. All the while, Jin stays by Alex’s side, holding his hand and talking about everything but the mental breakdown his husband just had.
“We could adopt,” Jin says, “If we time it right, he or she could be in the same grade as Dee’s baby.”
Alex tries to stop him, “Jin…”
Jin shakes his head and powers on, “Or we could even use an artificial surrogate and raise a hybrid. With Callosum’s private insurance, we wouldn’t even have to pay for it. Don’t you want to see what our clone would look like?”
“With my genes? Not really.”
Jin’s lips go thin as he bumps up against the elephant in the room. He waves it off. “I’m pretty sure they can prune those bits out.”
Alex opens his mouth, but Jin stops him with a kiss on the top of his hand, “Alex, I need this to be our happily ever after. All the pieces are here. We just have to move on from the overpass. Can you do that with me?”
Alex gives a faint nods, but he can’t bring himself to trust the idea of a happily ever after, not with Callosum tech inside his head manipulating his brain chemistry. Instead, he finds himself privately taking comfort in the thoughts whispering that this is all a cover-up. At least now he knows they’re his thoughts and no one else’s.
Alex uses a tablet to scroll through Social, holding out hope that @TheQuietPart will release the damning information, but it never happens. None of Alex’s dummy accounts posts again. Many of @TheQuietParts’ followers begin to wonder if Callosum had him silenced, and in a way, they did. The promised data dump quickly becomes a mythologized keystone that could have supported every single individualized theory, if only it had been released.
Dr. Mercer phases in to check in and talk through his experience. She seems genuinely interested in his well-being, if perhaps also a little too professionally excited about the case study that would surely come out of the ordeal. Still, it makes it hard to think of her as the enemy.
She leans forward, “Can I be honest? Of all the cases I’ve seen of people in your position, they’re usually relieved at this point. Some feel foolish or stupid for being swept up in such delusions, but not you. The narrative you were following was far more plausible and coherent than the others, and I wonder if that’s why you seem so disappointed.”
Alex nods and looks off, “The will be no grand revelation. I won’t get to see the enemy get held accountable. Their evil plot won’t be stopped in its tracks. I lost the battle, even if there was never a battle to begin with.”
“And what was that evil plot?”
“Callosum was going to install a tamer form of Cordyceps inside people. They want us all to be controlled by their machines.”
Dr. Mercer’s posture shifts ever so slightly as she hears this, and the lines at the corners of her eyes deepen. She shakes her head, “That would be an insidious plot indeed.”
Alex watches her uncross then re-cross her legs, then flick through a projection he can’t see.
It’s a subtle thing, but it’s there, and his doubt clings onto it.
She is hiding something—Callosum is hiding something. He’s sure of it.
The reality lock keeps Alex from using the digital to distract himself from his boredom. There’s an OLED screen on the wall with countless shows and series on hand, but he can’t seem to focus on it. For the first time he can remember, he tries to read an actual book, but has even less success with it and gives up after a few pages.
Just before eight, Alex finds himself nodding off, half-listening to the conversation at the nurse station during the shift change.
“It’s absurd that I still need to clock in and out,” the incoming night-shift nurse says, “I don’t know why he can’t do it.”
“You think that’ll be the standard after the alpha?” The outgoing nurse asks.
“God, I hope not. Half the reason I signed up was to get out of my commute. I live in Burbank.”
“Oof. No wonder you opted to be a guinea pig.”
Then silence.
The banter comes to an abrupt stop, pulling Alex’s attention. He turns and looks at the two through the frosted glass. The pregnant pause just keeps gestating as the nightshift nurse stands there, stock still.
The outgoing nurse chuckles, “On the dot,” then begins to gather her things. Alex checks the time. Whatever happened, it happens at eight ‘on the dot’.
Eventually, the incoming nurse speaks again, his voice now bled of any inflection, “I have reviewed the task list. Could you expand on the protocol for patient four?”
“Just report any visual anomalies you see and answer his questions to the best of your ability. He doesn’t have the firmest grasp on reality.”
“Understood.”
Alex waits as the new nurse makes his rounds. Eventually, he enters and pulls up his vitals. “Hello, I am Nurse Maddaus. How are you feeling tonight?”
“Fine,” Alex mutters and looks the Nurse over. Maddaus’s eyes are still; his face impassive in a way that is off-putting, but isn’t anything like those being controlled by Cordyceps. He’s pupils don’t show the panicking man trapped inside, trying to get out.
The nurse glances at him, “Could you elaborate?”
Alex shrugs, “How do you know if your happiness is real?”
“Are you saying you feel manic?”
Alex sits up. “No…I just don’t know if I’m happy or if my node is making me happy.”
The nurse nods and starts writing, “I am not qualified to answer that question, but it will be noted for Dr. Mercer in the logs.”
Alex raises an eyebrow, “I’m not trying to get philosophical here or anything. Just, how do you know if you’re genuinely happy?”
Nurse Maddaus turns and looks down at him. He blinks. “I have never felt happiness before, so I cannot judge its veracity.”
The answer takes Alex by surprise. “What do you mean? You’ve never been happy?”
Nurse Maddaus simply shakes his head, “No.” It’s not a cry for help. It’s a simple statement. “I’ve never been happy,” like “I’ve never tried Sushi.”
The nurse closes out of Alex’s monitor screen. “Any other questions?”
Alex takes a stab and asks, “What happens at eight?”
Maddaus turns to leave, “My apologies, but I cannot tell you that.”
He returns to the Nurse’s station and sits down.
…And then just sits there, unmoving, for hours.
As Alex watches the nurses shape through the frosted glass, a singular thought crosses his mind, “He’s one of them.”
After the forty-eight-hour hold, Alex and Jin return to their small studio apartment. Dee and Eric want to go out and celebrate, but Jin politely declines. “We just need to take it slow for the next couple of days.”
They cuddle up on the couch. Jin talks about moving and their future. They can afford a bigger place now. A much bigger place. Callosum is even offering corporate housing that will make their current apartment look like a shoebox.
Alex nods along and says, “Whatever works for you, dear.”
Jin nuzzles against his chest and watches the sun sink below the horizon of their little beach house, “Wherever we go, I think I want to keep this sim, though. It feels like us. Like home.”
Alex stares ahead at the blank white wall and smiles, “It’s a view I’ll never get sick of.”
He turned off his node the moment they left Callosum, disabling the biochemical regulation and filters that supposedly keep him sane. Manageable. A non-threat to the corporation. He takes comfort in the fear and paranoia seeping back in, knowing it’s his and his alone.
He takes out the thought he hid from Callosum during the forty-eight-hour hold and mulls it over. Powering down his node isn’t good enough. It’s still inside his head, its neural mesh tendrils still rooted throughout the folds of his brain. They could always turn it back on. Nothing would stop them from uploading the Cordyceps virus into his hardware, and then it would be game over. He would only be able to watch as the Cordycepts did God knows what.
Alex lies in bed, listening to his husband’s breathing grow soft and even, then speaks softly, “Jin?”
No response.
Alex stands and walks over to the kitchenette, where the shadow is waiting for him. He doesn’t consider the rationality of this moment. His node is off. This hallucination is all-natural, borne from his sickness, but the logic of it all is lost in the static. Instead, he says, “Okay, walk me through this.”
The shadow nods. “Get a knife and pliers.”
Author’s note: Thanks for reading. I particularly loved being able to give a glimpse into the birth of OAI and Gen-1 Nights. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend picking up my novel Partition: Critical Era. It continues Dee and Eric’s story in the Partitioned dystopian/utopian world that develops in the following years.
Someday, I’ll need to write down the 5-year personal horror story of writing a complex novel in which the two main characters share the same body but operate at different times of day, but the end result is so impressive, I still cannot believe I created it.
If you listen to audiobooks, I highly recommend you go that route. William DeMerrit's performance inhabiting Eric and Detective Noble is simply amazing.